Five pillars, one thesis: the infrastructure that raises your multiple is the same infrastructure that makes your business easier to run. Find your starting point below.
Start here if: You want to understand how buyers value a business, what moves the number, and why two identical companies can sell for very different prices.
Most owner-led businesses are worth 2x to 5x EBITDA — but where you land has less to do with how much you earn and more to do with how the business runs without you. The full picture, in one place.
Revenue gets you in the room. These six drivers decide the number you're paid on it — ranked by impact.
The crossover, the difference, and why the same business looks very different under each.
A weak add-back schedule can re-cut your valuation 20–30% before you reach final terms.
Walk the model: normalized earnings → multiple → enterprise value → deal structure → net proceeds.
Why sub-$5M businesses trade differently — and what determines where in the range you land.
Start here if: Your business depends on you for clients, decisions, or delivery — and you want to change that, either to sell at a premium or to get your time back.
Owner dependency is the single largest reason owner-led companies trade at the bottom of their range. The fix is the same whether you're planning to sell or just want your calendar back.
The math behind the 1.5x–2.5x vs 3.5x–5.0x gap — and the five signals a buyer's team flags immediately.
Before a buyer reads your P&L, they ask one question. Every answer below 100% is a discount.
Owner-held relationships are modeled as churn risk on day one. How to fix it before you go to market.
Inventory → triage by buyer risk → transfer relationships → document decisions → prove it runs.
The uninterrupted vacation isn't the reward. It's the proof — and the same test a buyer runs on a longer clock.
Start here if: You're preparing for a sale, want to understand the diligence process, or need to know why deals die — so yours doesn't.
An estimated 70–80% of listed businesses never close. This is the 8-dimension checklist a buyer's diligence team uses — work through it before they do.
Five stages, 60–120 days, one predictable failure pattern. Gaps don't get negotiated — they get priced.
Six avoidable reasons — ranked. None of them is bad luck. All of them are fixable with lead time.
The QoE is where your earnings get verified line by line. Be ready before a buyer demands one.
A deal can clear every financial number and still die on a non-assignable contract.
An earnout shifts performance risk from the buyer onto you. Here's how to avoid one.
Accurate books aren't the same as buyer-ready books. Here's the difference and how to close it.
Start here if: You need to build the CRM, pipeline, pricing, revenue quality, and operational documentation that PE firms install after they buy — done before you sell, so you capture the upside.
CRM, pipeline, pricing, revenue quality, SOPs. PE firms run this playbook after they acquire. Here's how to run it first — so you capture the value instead of your buyer.
The same dollar of profit is worth more when it's predictable. Here's the quality spectrum.
Ad hoc pricing reads as fragility. Documented pricing logic reads as pricing power.
A buyer buys your forecast — if they can believe it. Here's how to build one they trust.
Willingness to step back isn't enough. The account has to exist in a system, not your head.
What they see in 5 minutes — and what a messy CRM signals about the business.
One client over 15% of revenue triggers an immediate discount, regardless of how good the revenue is.
SOPs written for compliance gather dust. SOPs that capture decision-making actually transfer.
You don't need a CFO and COO. You need authority, accountability, and documented decision-making.
Start here if: You're an M&A advisor, broker, lender, or CPA whose clients need to be deal-ready before going to market — and you want a readiness partner who protects the fee, not competes with it.
An estimated 70–80% of listed businesses never close. The most common cause: the client wasn't ready for what diligence revealed. Here's how the partnership works — and why a readiness referral protects your fee.
Surface deal-killers before the LOI — with language you can adapt and use with clients today.
The decision framework: three variables, five client profiles, and what each choice costs your practice.
A clean-looking deal, dead in week 9. It didn't die over price. It died over surprise.
The math on why an unready client is the expensive one — and why a referral protects, not gives away, the fee.