Summary: Jock Purtle is an online business broker specialist, who owns and runs the full service website brokerage Digital Exits. He specializes in helping online business owners find a buyer when they want to exit their company. Jock personally exited his online business in 2013, and is on track to facilitate over 20 deals in 2014, ranging from $100,000 to up to 5 million dollars. It is with great pleasure that I say, "Welcome to the call, Jock." Jock: Thanks, Greg. Very happy to be here. Looking forward to sharing some information. Greg: Yeah, excellent, excellent. Jock and I, for a bit of background, we just met only maybe a month or two ago at the Digital Marketer Higher Level Warren [sp]. We had something in common, obviously, because we were both Aussies. Jock's a young guy, but I straight away knew he was very clever, very switched on. We had a good chat and resonated, and I said I really wanted to share some of his teachings with the Internet Marketing Magazine community. And that's how this whole thing came about. So, Jock, I know you've achieved a lot of success at, really, a younger age. Can you share us a bit of your story and how you got to where you are right now? Jock: Sure. So, I'm childhood entrepreneur lucky enough to have a family business where I could learn and develop my skills from a young age. I started working for mom and dad, probably around the age of 10. Greg: Was it traditional brokerage, was it? Jock: So the business that they had at the time was an auction company. So, they had a general auction company where they'd have clearing sales- that's machinery, planting equipment, building materials, furniture, white goods, all of the above. Greg: Yes. Jock: So, they bought that business in 1996, but previous dad's always been a broker since he was young. He had to buy the family business when he was 23 from his old man, or from his mother, because his old man died. He came from a brokerage background in terms of businesses, real estate, and stock. So he was a stock broker. So, we were from the country in New South Wales. So, it's in the blood if you put it that way. Greg: Yeah, got you. Jock: And then in terms of progression to the internet, I started off as a personal trainer. Didn't have money to put ads in the paper. Googled "personal trainer marketing” and found all these guys from the U.S. that were teaching how to market your personal training business online. So, I taught myself WordPress, SEO, Facebook ads- I remember running Facebook ads in the mid-2000s, back when no one was even on there. I remember getting 2 cent, 3 cent, 4 cent clicks. Those were the good ol' days. So then the progression was to doing web design, and SEO for small businesses. Then, in 2009, I found some information on people who were buying and selling online businesses, and then bought my first online business which was an AdSense site for low 5 figures in 2009. So that was the progression in terms of the early days. Greg: Got you. Now into running the brokerage from there. One question that I know you hear a lot, but really what a lot of people want to know is, "what's my online business worth?" So, I was wondering if you could share some your insights and wisdom into how do valuations work, and especially in this online space? Jock: Sure, online are business evaluations are slightly different to online business evaluations. Greg: Do you mean offline business? Jock: Yeah, sorry. Greg: Got you. Jock: So you generally, normally use a discounted cash flow valuation method for an offline business. But what the market has accepted for online businesses, is a multiple of earnings method. So, the valuation of an online business is based off profits. So it's a multiple of the profit of the last 12 months, or trailing 12 months of your business. So, for example, if your online business made $200,000 in net profit in the last 12 months,
