How I scaled my property business to 100k months and then successfully sold it!
I have now sold two businesses. The first one was a scuba diving resort in Indonesia. I have been a scuba instructor since I was 18 when I qualified in Malaysia during my GAP year. I worked my way around Southeast Asia for the next four summers when I had time off from Uni, and absolutely loved it!
I learned how to teach, how to be calm and collected underwater, and how to run a dive shop. I loved it so much that once I had finished my Masters degree (In Southeast Asian Economics, Politics and Anthropology of course!) I decided that I wanted my own dive business.
After a lot of research I found the perfect place – a remote beach located on Bangka Island, North Sulawesi in Eastern Indonesia. My husband and I spent a month there planning, costing things up and then we managed to raise £60,000 to start building.
It was so exciting! I had a five-year plan for the business; we started with two cottages for guests, a restaurant, dive centre, we dug a well for water, had two generators for electricity and a few amazing local staff. Over the five years that we were there we increased to ten cottages and eleven Indonesian staff as well as creating a NGO to help the local village by teaching English and hospitality and we even managed to fight off a Chinese mining company who arrived illegally! I need to write a book about all of this!
We followed the five-year plan and we also had our two kids out there. When they were two and three years old we decided to sell the business and head back to the UK so they could go to school here.
The second business that I scaled to sell was a property management business. We took on old student house shares and transformed them into professional ones. Once again I had a five-year plan – I wanted 30 of these house shares which would bring in a profit of £15,000 per month. I scaled the business in four years to have 40 of these properties within it, hitting £100k months and turning it into a profitable and sellable asset.
What has surprised me after talking about this more is that less than 5% of businesses actually sell!
Most businesses tend to shut down or liquidise. And that’s ok, some people get to the point where they want to retire and they close their business and take whatever’s left in the bank. But imagine selling your business one day for £400,000? That’s exactly what I did!
Here are the things to do to get your business ready to sell, it’s my SCALE framework.
And before you say “Sophie, I’m not ready to sell my business right now,” I know, I hear you – but if you put all of these things into place bit by bit, you are creating a sellable asset and you have an exit plan. So if anything happens to you or your circumstances change, this option is now available to you.
Let’s do it:
- S is for systems – I need you to record everything you do so that you can delegate or outsource it. This can be writing SOPs (standard operating procedures) or simply recording yourself on Zoom sharing your screen. The more systemised you can get, the better!
- C is for customer on repeat – Buyers love to see recurring income, whether it’s long contracts, a community or something else. Don’t just rely on one big customer, buyers like to see a diverse customer base and a good growth plan.
- A is for assets – This is everything from your website, email list, IP, a framework that you have developed – anything that your business owns. This all adds value!
- L is for leadership team – this shows that the business can run without you. If you run it as a founder, it can be a harder sell unless the buyer wants to do that. Having a team in place means that a buyer can take on a business that runs smoothly already.
- E is for exit-ready! – This is where I start with all of my businesses; remember I do a five-year plan each time and work to that? That’s what I want you to do. Get a long-term plan in place and work towards it. Ask yourself what can I delegate first? Which team members do I need in place?
I hope this has helped, I really want to increase the tiny percentage of businesses that sell rather than shut down! I’m also buying two businesses this year, I am passionate about building assets especially as women. We are smart investors who tend to make better investing decisions and then spend our money with other women and within our communities.
Name: Sophie Foote
Professional Title: Director
Bio: Sophie is a scuba diving adventurer who has lived and worked across the world. She bought a beach at 26 years old in Indonesia where she built an off-grid scuba diving resort. Five years later she sold it, moved back to the UK and built a property management business. She scaled it to £1.6 million annual revenue and sold it in 2026. She helps others to build assets through scaling their business!
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