You signed, wired the funds, took the photo with the keys. Now what? The first ninety days after you buy a business in London near me can set the arc for years. I call the ramp plan LIQUIDSUNSET. It’s a practical sequence I’ve used with owners taking over cafés near Wortley Village, HVAC shops out by the 401, and niche manufacturers tucked into industrial units off Adelaide. It’s not a rigid template, more a way to keep your head while the firehose is open.
The LIQUIDSUNSET framework runs through listening, inventories, quick wins, and the gradual handover to your steady state. London, Ontario has its quirks: seasonality tied to Western University and Fanshawe College semesters, customers who will drive across town for a trusted service provider, and a small enough business community that your reputation moves faster than your ad spend. You don’t need exotic strategy. You need discipline, empathy, and a stopwatch.
The day you close: orient, don’t declare victory
On day one, resist the urge to rearrange the furniture. The team is watching your face more than your slide deck. If you worked with a business broker London Ontario near me to find this opportunity, you likely saw tidy numbers and a confident seller. Reality is messier. There are undocumented workarounds, stale vendor credits, and one customer who makes up 28 percent of revenue and pays late every second month.
I like to start by acknowledging what exists. Meet the staff where they work, shake hands with top customers, and sit briefly with the seller even if you think you’ve squeezed every minute out of due diligence. The best signal you can send is that you intend to learn before you change. In a small market, that message travels.
L is for Listen: the first 10 days
Listening is not passive. It is structured intake. Schedule one-on-ones with every employee, not just managers, ideally in their natural setting. Fifteen to thirty minutes per person is enough. Ask simple questions: What slows you down? What do customers love? If you had $5,000 to spend here next week, where would it go? Keep a running list, resist the urge to promise fixes on the spot, and capture specific examples, not generalities.
Customers deserve the same attention. If you bought a business for sale London, Ontario near me with fewer than 50 key accounts, call each one personally. For a retail business with hundreds of casual customers, stand at the counter and watch patterns, then pull a customer list from the POS and reach out to loyalty members. Introduce yourself, keep it short, affirm service continuity, and ask what one thing would make them happier. The tone matters more than the content. In London, people test for sincerity quickly.
Vendors round out the picture. They will tell you which invoices the seller stretched, which SKUs carry hidden rebates, and where you can unlock terms. If any supplier sits on more than 15 percent of your cost of goods, meet them in person. Even if you’re the smallest account on their route, a coffee meeting can get you a percentage point in discounts or faster fulfillment in a pinch.
I is for Inventory: count, map, and clean the data
In the first two weeks, audit what you own and what you owe. Inventory means more than products on a shelf. It includes contracts, assets, processes, data, and risks.
Some owners postpone the full physical count because it disrupts operations. I prefer to stage it intelligently. Choose a slow afternoon, close an hour early if needed, and count the top 30 percent of SKUs by revenue. Then roll through the rest in batches. In service businesses, inventory is parts, tools, trucks, and time. Time leaks are the worst. If a tech spends 40 minutes a day looking for fittings, you’re losing a truck’s worth of productivity each month.
Map your processes like a tourist draws a subway map, not an engineer. You want to see the flow from lead to invoice, from purchase order to receipt, from complaint to resolution. I once mapped a repair shop that treated quotes as art projects. Each technician wrote them freehand. We introduced simple templates and cut average quote prep time from 27 minutes to 8. No software purchase, just clarity.
Clean the data in your accounting and POS systems. You likely inherited duplicate customer names, dead SKUs, and miscategorized expenses. Fixing chart-of-accounts structure early saves hours later and improves your visibility. A good bookkeeper in London will cost $35 to $70 per hour, and a week of focused cleanup pays dividends all year.
Q is for Quick wins: earn trust with small, visible improvements
Your team needs evidence that you do what you say. Quick wins should be cheap, convenient, and directly tied to the gripes you heard during listening. Replace the dead-label printer, stock the sizes that sell out by Friday, swap the coffee in the break room for something people actually drink. Keep a visible board for what got fixed. Teams remember actions, not emails.
Customers respond the same way. If you bought a café near campus, extend Saturday hours slightly during midterms. If you took over a landscaping business, return quotes within 24 hours and say so on your website. In London, where word of mouth can swing you 10 to 20 percent in a season, responsiveness beats a glossy rebrand.
Quick wins don’t replace bigger changes. They buy you the time and goodwill to make them.
U is for Understand the cash cycle: watch the oxygen
Cash is oxygen and you just changed altitude. London businesses see lumpy months. Retail spikes in August and December. Trades see surges when thaw hits and when the first cold snap arrives. If you rely on student foot traffic, beware May and December troughs. Build a 13-week cash flow model. Weekly, not monthly. It doesn’t need to be pretty, but it must be honest.
Forecast receipts based on real invoice cycles, not hopes. If the business you bought has a customer that pays net-30 in theory but net-47 in practice, model net-47. Align payroll dates with inflows where possible. Negotiate vendor terms respectfully. Tell them you aim to be a top decile payer and follow through. That alone opens doors when you need an emergency order.
Look at margin line by line. Freight has quietly eaten three points in some categories since 2020. If your gross margin is ten points below the industry average you saw when you searched for a business for sale London Ontario near me, you may have a pricing problem, a leakage issue, or both. Small price increases, applied surgically, often create less blowback than you fear. Test by product category or service bundle, watch demand, and document the rationale.
I is for Integrate tech slowly: the tool follows the job
Many new owners install systems in month one and spend months untangling integrations they didn’t need. Resist the impulse. Start by clarifying the job you want done. Do you need to speed up scheduling to reduce idle https://atavi.com/share/xk5eq1z1creco time? Then a lightweight calendar with SMS reminders might beat a full field service suite. Trying to track inventory? Batch scanning with your existing POS might bridge you through the season.
When you do choose software, keep choices reversible. Month-to-month contracts, exportable data, a champion on your team who will own usage. I once watched a printer switch rip and replace their MIS in week two, only to discover salespeople couldn’t generate quotes without six new fields they didn’t understand. Sales dipped for eight weeks and morale cratered. We rolled back, restored revenue, then rebuilt quietly over ninety days.
D is for Deal with people: roles, incentives, and the seller’s shadow
The people you inherited are the business. Some are waiting to see if you mean what you say. Some are protecting secrets. A few might be actively undermining if they were passed over in the sale. You will not win them all. Your job is to be fair and clear.
Get role clarity early. Job titles in small businesses often mask real responsibilities. The “office manager” might actually be a queen of collections who hates HR work. The “lead tech” might be exceptional at mentoring but slow on complex jobs. Align roles to strengths. When needed, move two chairs to fit the person rather than forcing a person into a chair that does not suit.
Incentives should reward the behaviors you need. For sales teams, avoid pure volume targets if your capacity is constrained. Tie payouts to gross profit and to on-time delivery or low rework rates. In a service business, consider a small team bonus for five-star reviews, not just completion counts. Make the rules legible. People will push to the edges of incentives. That is not cynicism, it is math.
The seller’s shadow lingers. If the previous owner is staying on for a transition, set boundaries. Two mornings a week on site, a weekly recap call, and a list of open items they will help close works better than an open-door policy that drags them into every decision. If the seller is out, be respectful but do not treat them as your therapist. They had their time. You have yours.
S is for Standards: document what good looks like
Unclear standards create friction. When I stepped into a custom millwork shop near Old East Village, quality varied by shift because “good enough” was in the eye of the operator. We wrote a one-page spec with photos and tolerances, laminated it, and used it at the bench. Remakes dropped by a third within a month.
Standards cover safety, customer response times, quote accuracy, cleanliness, and cross-checks. Keep them short and visual. Train by doing. Shadow a service call, set the ladder, watch the PPE, and then ask the tech to narrate their steps back to you. Nothing beats repetition.
U is for Uncover risk: legal, compliance, and concentration
London is friendly, but regulators still knock. Check WSIB status, review your accessibility obligations, and confirm your business license aligns with what you actually do. If you bought a food operation, schedule a courtesy health inspection walk-through before an official one surprises you. If you run vehicles, check CVOR and insurance details. Renew what expires within sixty days.
Customer concentration is a sleeper risk. If one client line is more than 20 percent of your revenue, set a plan in motion to diversify. Keep the big client happy, but develop two or three prospects that could share that load over six months. On the vendor side, identify single points of failure. If only one supplier carries a critical part, find a backup or stock more than you think you need before peak season.
N is for Numbers that matter: define your scorecard
You will drown in data if you try to track everything. Pick a handful of operating metrics that lead, not lag. For a trades business: jobs booked per day, average response time, first-time fix rate, and gross profit per crew day. For retail: footfall, conversion rate, average ticket, and shrinkage. For e-commerce add-on: cart conversion and fulfillment cycle time. For a boutique manufacturer: on-time-in-full, scrap rate, and setup time.
Tie the scorecard to your weekly rhythm. Look at it with your leadership, ask what moved and why, and make one or two decisions. Fresh owners over-index on meetings. Keep them short. On Mondays, set targets. Midweek, remove obstacles. Fridays, review what stuck.
S is for Story: craft your narrative for staff and customers
Change unnerves people. A good story steadies them. It should be honest, short, and repeatable. Why you bought the business, what will stay the same, what will be better, and how you’ll treat people along the way. Share it with staff first, then customers. In London, people appreciate straight talk. Promise fewer things and hit every one.
If you used a business broker London Ontario near me, they might be willing to introduce you to a handful of peers who closed in the last year. Talk to them. Learn what they wish they’d said on day seven. You’ll find that the best stories are simple: we keep our word, we show up on time, and we do the work as if our name is on it.
E is for Edge: where you win, and where you won’t
You cannot be great at everything. Decide where you will draw the line. A small industrial supplier I advised stopped chasing tiny one-off special orders that burned hours. They leaned into being the fastest at common items within a 40-minute radius. Revenue dipped slightly in the first quarter, then grew faster with better margins. Edge is not bragging. It is a ruthless focus on what the market will pay you to repeat.
Look at competitors in London and the nearby counties. Some underprice because they undercount overhead. Others rely on relationships and carry stale tech. You don’t need to outspend them. You need to know which customers value speed, which value certainty, and which value price. Build offers that match. If you moved into a business for sale London Ontario near me banking on premium positioning, make sure your lead times and presentation match that claim.
T is for Time blocks: design your week so it doesn’t design you
The first 90 days explode with demands. If you allow your calendar to be a public commons, you will spend your best hours on the wrong tasks. Time block the essentials: an hour daily on cash and metrics, a slot for customer calls, a walk-through with staff, and a chunk for projects that change the slope of the curve.
Put hiring into a recurring slot even if you are not actively recruiting. Good candidates appear when you are not ready. Have a simple scorecard for roles you know you will need in six months. A bench beats a scramble.
What the first two weeks look like in practice
Here’s how I’ve seen a smooth start unfold for a new owner of a specialty service company near Hyde Park with ten employees and $1.8 million in revenue.
- Day 1 to Day 3: short all-hands, ride-alongs with each crew, quick vendor and landlord intros, letter to top 25 customers. Day 4 to Day 7: limited inventory count for high-velocity parts, cash model build, standards draft for core service calls. Day 8 to Day 10: first price review on a narrow category, implement SMS appointment reminders, post “You asked, we fixed” board in the shop.
Each of those steps was small. Together, they told a story: continuity with momentum.
The messy middle: days 15 to 60
The adrenaline fades after week two. This is when you either start stacking improvements or get bogged down. Expect a few things to break in the handover. Your objective is to notice quickly and correct without drama.
Hiring and letting go often land here. If you inherited a chronic problem and you can’t coach it up, you’ll need to decide whether to coach out. Do it respectfully, with notice and support. A quiet, fair exit impresses your team more than a long tolerance of toxicity. Bring someone in early even if they are a stretch candidate. London has a deep bench of capable people who value stability. Train on the job, give feedback daily, and put them on visible wins.
Marketing evolves in this window, too. Don’t pour money into ads before you get retention right. Simple moves like updating your Google Business Profile, gathering fresh reviews, and making sure your phone is answered quickly will beat most campaigns. Measure lead sources. If a “buy a business in London near me” search led you here, remember that your future customers find you the same way. Make your presence tight and current.
Negotiate with vendors once you’ve proven you pay on time and order predictably. Ask for a small improvement in price or terms, or access to discontinued lots you can move. In trades, secure preferred scheduling with suppliers when you need parts in peak season. In retail, coordinate your promotions with their calendar for extra co-op dollars.
The systems tune-up: days 60 to 90
After two months, trends emerge. Your scorecard shows patterns. The backlog moves, or it doesn’t. You’ve tried a few changes and seen what people accept. This is the time to tackle one or two structural shifts.
Examples: move scheduling to a centralized desk so crews stay on the tools. Implement a basic Kanban for inventory restocking. Shift to batch invoicing daily rather than weekly to improve cash. Replace the worst legacy software if it truly strangles you, but only after you’ve mapped the process and trained the team.
This is also a good moment to adjust your pricing model. If you tested increases, review churn and order size. Many owners find that a two to four percent move across targeted categories sticks without drama. Even in price-sensitive niches, a clear value statement makes small raises palatable. Put the increase in the context of improved responsiveness or warranty clarity.
If you plan to sell a business London Ontario near me later, act like it now
Some readers buy to operate forever. Others buy with an eye to exit. Either way, run the company as if a buyer will look under the hood any day. Clean financials. Document processes. Reduce reliance on you personally. Track cohort retention if you have subscriptions. Keep contract files in one place. Maintain your lease and know your assignment clauses. Businesses that fetch higher multiples in London are the ones that look like they can survive the owner being on a beach for a month.
If you expect to sell in three to five years, build relationships with a business broker London Ontario near me early. Ask them what today’s buyers ding in diligence. Solve those things now, not in the year you list. Many owners lose 0.5 to 1.5 turns of EBITDA on avoidable sloppiness that would have taken a quarter to fix.
Edge cases you might face
Not every acquisition in London fits the pattern. A few tricky scenarios come up more often than people admit.
- Seller-operator as bottleneck: The previous owner is the rainmaker. Customers call their mobile. Solution: shadow for two to three weeks, then start calling from your number alongside them. Introduce a team email that is monitored by two people. Give customers a reason to use the general line, like faster dispatch. Messy books after close: You find accruals misapplied or inventory overstated. Don’t panic. Build trailing twelve-month views with corrected entries, disclose to your lender if covenants are at risk, and fix forward. If you used an earnout, document in writing how you’ll treat the adjustments. Surprise turnover: A key employee leaves in month one. Have a contingency list. Pay a short-term premium for a contractor to bridge. Show the team you will not be held hostage by one role, and communicate how work will be covered. Seasonal whiplash: You bought in April and thought you were a genius by June, then July fell off a cliff. Pull three years of monthly data if available, overlay local events, and build a staffing plan that flexes without burning goodwill. Offer voluntary reduced hours with partial shift swapping rather than sudden cuts.
How the London context influences decisions
London is big enough to have options and small enough that people remember how you treated them. A poor interaction at a home show can ripple through a season. A friendly fix at no charge can win a customer for a decade. Your neighbors are your market. Chamber breakfasts, Western alumni circles, and neighborhood Facebook groups still move the needle.
Labor has its rhythms. Students swell the candidate pool in September and January. Skilled trades stay tight, and referrals matter. Pay a modest referral bonus for good hires. Invest in training even if they might leave in two years. Word gets around.
Real estate matters for foot traffic and logistics. If you inherited a lease that pinches, start a light conversation with the landlord early. Offer improvements that increase the property’s value in exchange for an option. If you’re hunting for growth, look at light industrial pockets near Exeter Road and the 401 for access.
Telling the truth about your first 90 days
You will make mistakes. You will forget a name or misprice a product line or overestimate how fast a process will change. The measure of those ninety days is not perfection. It is the number of times you learn faster than the problem compounds.
The LIQUIDSUNSET plan is simple by design:
- Listen to people closest to the work. Inventory what you truly have. Win trust with small fixes. Understand cash down to the week. Integrate tools that suit the job. Deal with people clearly and kindly. Set standards anyone can see. Uncover risks before they uncover you. Name the numbers that lead outcomes. Craft a story you can repeat. Choose an edge and ignore the rest. Guard your time so it serves the plan.
If you keep that cadence, the business you bought starts to look and feel like yours. You’ll see the early reviews mention your name alongside the company’s. Vendors will call you first with a deal. Staff will bring ideas without fear that change means chaos. Ninety days is not long enough to reinvent anything. It is long enough to set a tone, fix leaks, and point the ship.
For some, the search to buy a business in London near me ends when the keys change hands. For the ones who build durable companies, the search ends and the work begins. Quietly. Consistently. One week at a time.