Richard McMullan

Built to Keep (or Sell)

Business EN ↓ 6 episodes

Most owner-led businesses look solid on the surface. Revenue is there. The team is in place. Day-to-day, it works. But when something changes — a key person leaves, costs move, a decision cuts across the business — it still comes back to the owner to hold things together. That’s where value is really tested. And where it often quietly breaks. This is a weekly series for owners of established manufacturing, engineering, and complex B2B businesses who know things aren’t as robust as they look — and want to fix it properly. Each episode breaks down how businesses are actually built, where value i...

Author

Richard McMullan

Episodes

When gut feel is no longer enough 09.07.2026 22:27

The bigger your business gets, the less of it you'll ever see with your own eyes again. Instinct only works on what you can personally observe. Once you can't watch it all yourself, some of what matters gets filtered before it reaches you, tidied up before you see it, or quietly lost to rework and discounting on jobs you're not involved with. Some of that costs you before you see it...

Why nothing in your business ever quite sticks, and the rhythm that fixes it 11.06.2026 23:40

Most owners can name every project they’ve started in the last two years. The systems upgrade went in. The new product launched. The bottleneck hire is in post. On paper, everything delivered. But is the business meaningfully different than it was two years ago. For may, in practice, the business looks much the same – similar performance, similar problems, similar Sunday-evening dread. This episod...

What it actually costs to be your own salesperson 20.05.2026 24:37

The owner is the best salesperson in the business. That's how it got to where it is. It's also why it can't get any bigger, why the pipeline runs like a sine wave, and why a buyer one day will offer you significantly less than you think the business is worth. Being the best salesperson works beautifully for a while. The owner understands the buyer's problem better than anyone i...

Client Concentration Problem 29.04.2026 22:04

What Client Concentration Actually Is Most business owners know client concentration is a risk. Fewer can tell you what the threshold actually is — or why the percentage is the wrong thing to focus on. In this episode, Richard McMullan breaks down what client concentration means in practice: where the 15% guideline comes from, why the real threshold depends on your margins and business model, and...

Early warning sign your business will trap you 09.04.2026 23:50

From the outside, the business looks successful – multi-million sales, decent profits, loyal customers and team. On paper, it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. And if you’d asked the owner five or ten years earlier what they were trying to build, this is probably very close to what they had in mind. Most owners would expect, at that point, for things to start to feel easier, less stressfu...

Why Most Businesses Stall below £10m 21.03.2026 16:38

At first glance, it looks like our UK manufacturing and engineering businesses are growing strongly as the number of companies doing between £10m and £50m turnover has increased from 7,550 in 2019 to 9,535 in 2025. The growth seems impressive, doesn’t it? But don’t be fooled. Those revenue bands don’t allow for inflation, which was 28.3% over the period. If you’d been doing £8m a year in 2018 and...