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Hi, I’m Greg Boyer, founder of Boyer Business Advisory and author of “The Business Owner’s Guide to Living Happily Ever After”, and creator of the Transition to Freedom Blueprint Program.
When I started my first business in 1995, I had no idea of the journey I would take, nor the work and life lessons I would experience.
My three business partners and I certainly didn’t expect to take over a $30M business, strategically grow it, and subsequently sell it five years later for over $500 million on the Australian Stock Exchange, let alone project manage over $2 billion worth of engineering, property, and infrastructure projects.
Notwithstanding the successes, I have also experienced failure. The global financial crisis (GFC) in 2009 sent me broke and I had to learn how to get back on my feet again.
I’m now living the life of my dreams, but I want to share my work and life lessons with those who aspire to transition out of their own business, as I have done successfully numerous times, so they can turn their dreams into reality.
Here’s how my journey transpired …
As a young boy, I was always interested in planes and buildings, which probably led me to do more science-based subjects at school and eventually engineering at university. At one stage in my teenage years, I was thinking of becoming an Air Force pilot. That idea ‘flew’ away when I saw a TV ad about joining the Air Force. No way was I going to get a short haircut like those Air Force pilots! It’s funny how such minor things can influence you at a young age, and even more ironic now as I’m bald as a badger and can only dream of those haircuts!
Anyway, I was lucky enough to get an engineering cadetship with a large Australian fire protection company after I left school and started my career indentured as a fitter and turner. The company wanted all their young engineers to learn a trade so they could get hands-on experience before learning the discipline of engineering at university. It was a great way to learn from the ground up. After 2 years, we were sent back to the office and commenced our professional engineering training.
My first formative experience came from an engineering mentor at work. Alan had been employed in the company for over 35 years, but after seeing the company ownership sold to a private equity firm, he one day told me he wouldn’t be in his job much longer. I was shocked at this advice, as Alan was one of the most experienced and knowledgeable employees in the company, but he thought the owners would run the company with a lower cost base. That meant, in Alan’s eyes, they would get rid of the more experienced and expensive employees, albeit with a loss of knowledge. As a young engineer, I couldn’t fathom that. I thought being employed in a large company meant you had job security. I was wrong. Sure enough, three months later, Alan was given his redundancy notice.
My lesson from this experience … no matter how good you are, being an employee doesn’t mean you have a job for life. With this experience in the back of my mind, I developed an in-built desire to one day run my own business.
In my final year of the engineering cadetship, and to the shock of my parents, I quit the company and became a freelance salesman selling Citizen watches to jewellery shops! My goal was to make enough money to save for a deposit on my first apartment. I had a good product to sell, and I was OK at selling. I ended up beating sales targets and made more money in six months than I did in the previous three years of engineering employment. Within eight months, I had achieved my financial goal, and I had a taste of freedom working for myself as a commission-only salesman. However, I didn’t have a passion for the industry, and I wanted to go back to engineering and construction. I left after one year in the sales job, finished my engineering degree, and got a job with a small engineering consultancy.
This is where I received my next formative advice from a mentor. My mentor was the owner of the engineering consultancy (Peter). One day I asked Peter why he left a good job in a large engineering corporation to start up his own consultancy practice. He said owning your own business was like walking across a deep valley on a tightrope … it’s very exciting but also very dangerous. If you’re smart, you’ll have a safety net to overcome any danger. After constructing the tightrope and safety net system, Peter said getting across the other side of the valley gives you a great feeling of achievement and a sense of purpose in life. Peter thought being an employee in a large corporation was like walking across the same deep valley, but instead of building a tightrope system and managing the risks yourself, you are instructed by a boss to make your way across the valley on a wide bridge built by others. The bridge has no inherent danger, and the walk is not challenging. Getting across the valley this way would be boring to Peter, and he reckoned he would have no sense of achievement.
His metaphor about the difference between business ownership and employment was apt, and I had a feeling I would find this out in the future.
My desire was to one day create my own project management consultancy; however, I knew I needed more experience. I subsequently worked with two exceptional petrochemical companies where I learned the discipline of project management and worked on exciting and complex engineering projects.
After 5 years of working on these projects, I experienced another situation similar to Alan’s (in my first job as an engineering cadet). I saw a well-performed colleague lose his job due to a management decision at head office. He had done nothing wrong, but management wanted to reduce the cost base of the company.
At the time, I was already disenchanted about my impending move out of the engineering department into another department of the company. I just wanted to stay in the engineering department building things. So I made a life-changing decision. At the age of 32, armed with a recently acquired MBA, I made the decision to leave my corporate job to start my own project management consultancy. I had friends and colleagues at the time questioning why I left this well-paid job in a very good company, but I knew I had an inbuilt passion to take control and find more freedom in my life. It was time to build my own tightrope system across the valley, and I was determined to succeed.
Although I had the educational credentials & work experience to start my own consultancy, I had little to no experience and knowledge about how to start and run a business efficiently and effectively. I had to learn the hard way. Looking back, I wish I had sought out mentors who had started their own businesses to acquire this bespoke knowledge.
I gained wisdom from many mistakes. What saved me was having a good network of existing and potential clients and never putting “all my eggs in one basket.” I always had contingency plans. They were my safety net.
I created a good project management practice that eventually merged into a larger property development business with two other business partners. In our team, due to my risk management and organisational skills, I was responsible for planning, structuring, and operating the business entities we created.
Everything was going well until the unexpected hit us. The “black swan” Global Financial Crisis arrived in 2008. It became a bad time to be in property development, and we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thankfully, our strategic risk management and contingency planning allowed us to get back on our feet eventually.
My business partners and I kept persisting and continued to grow our small business until a property investment company acquired us. This was my first successful business sale, notwithstanding our equity was swapped for shares and options in the acquiring business. The existing directors of this business wanted to use our property and project management skills to create more value for their existing shareholders, as well as give them a liquidity event within a defined period. So we took over the running of the $30 million company and revised its strategic direction.
We created several subsidiary companies, one of which was an infrastructure management company that I created from scratch. This business would be my next successful business sale. I was able to grow and strategically sell this infrastructure entity within 3 years after achieving revenue of over $4 million and assets under management of over $1 billion. The difference here, compared to the first business sale, which was an equity swap with ongoing management commitments, was my strategy of systemising the business that delivered a cash sale with no ongoing commitment. I would call this an ideal type of sale for any business owner.
Following the strategic sale of this subsidiary business, my partners and I then sought and gained approval from our independent board to undertake an Initial Public Offering (IPO) and list the parent company on the stock exchange. This was the Liquidity Event the original shareholders had dreamed of and would turn out to be my third business sale within the space of 5 years. A year later, the company, which was valued at $30 million when we took over its operations, was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in August 2016 with a value of over $500 million. We had increased the shareholder equity by 16x in only five years.
In the space of five years, I helped develop and complete three successful business sales that realised significant returns for myself, my partners, and our shareholders.
Now don’t get me wrong, having financial security is great, but to me, money isn’t everything. I still had other things I wanted to do that would give me purpose, fulfilment and happiness in my life. So I decided to leave the all-consuming intensity of the corporate world and follow my dreams again.
And that takes me to where I am now …
My biggest win in life is being blessed with a loving family who’ve supported me all the way. I could not have done what I’ve done without them.
In addition to this fortune, my business career has given me great success, notwithstanding the challenges I’ve experienced along the way. From an apprentice tradesman, watch salesman, mechanical engineer, project manager, small business owner, and business director, I’ve had a fulfilling career. Despite the challenges, I wouldn’t swap the experience for anything, as it has made me grow into the person I am today. I’ve learned the importance of time management, planning, knowledge, resilience, perseverance, and, most importantly, my purpose in life … to use the knowledge learned and experiences gained to help others on their respective journeys.
I now find it fulfilling and exciting to provide transition advice to business owners, especially when that advice helps them enhance their enterprise value. At the same time, they are successfully overcoming market & demographic odds and transitioning into their dream life, as I have.
In addition to the satisfaction of helping business owners, I now have the added bonus of working from a rural office that comes with awe-inspiring views and is located only 5 minutes from my favourite bass fishing lake … happy days!!
Now with a great work/life balance, I can savour time with my family and friends, play sports (rugby, cricket, mountain biking and surfing), and live a relaxed lifestyle in regional NSW while concurrently retaining an engaging and enjoyable professional life with Boyer Business Advisory.
As the saying goes … I am now living a life happily ever after!
With that experience, if I was speaking to the younger Greg Boyer 30 years ago about pursuing business dreams, this is what I would recommend: –
Boyer Business Advisory was founded to channel my 30+ years of business ownership, experience, and knowledge to help business owners turn their future dreams into reality. Transitioning out or exiting a business is like flying and landing a plane. If you’ve never done it before, then it’s wise to get someone who’s qualified and experienced to help you do it. The consequences of not doing it right can be catastrophic.
So now I’ve “flown and landed the plane” many times; I know what’s involved in the journey, I’ve mapped it out, and I can show you how to do it.
All you have to do is get in touch with me. Just send an enquiry via the button below. ⇓
In the meantime, I wish you all the best in your quest to live your next stage of life, happily ever after.
Kind Regards,
Greg Boyer CPEng, MBA, CEPA
Founder – Boyer Business Advisory
Creator – Transition to Freedom Blueprint Program
Get in touch with Greg Boyer to find out more …