What is your business actually worth?

Most valuations are built to win a listing. Yours needs to be built to survive a buyer, a lender, and diligence.

Anyone can hand you a number. The question that matters is whether the number holds up when a buyer's advisor picks at it line by line and a lender runs it against the debt the buyer has to carry. That is the standard we build to, and it is why we price a business before it goes to market rather than defending a price after an offer collapses.
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Two kinds of businesses, two ways to measure them

Before any number means anything, the right measure has to be on the table. That depends on one question. After the sale, does the business still need to pay someone to run it, or does the current owner run it and plan to keep running it?
Owner Operated
MEASURED ON SDE
You are the business. Seller discretionary earnings capture the full benefit of ownership, including what you pay yourself and what the business covers on your behalf.
Manager Run
MEASURED ON EBITDA
A team runs daily operations and the business pays for that leadership. EBITDA treats that cost as an operating expense, which is how larger buyers and their lenders read the business.

An inflated price costs more than a low one

We have seen brokers list a business at an inflated price just to win the listing. It looks appealing on paper and it feels good to hear a bigger number. It rarely ends well. An inflated price sits on the market, the serious buyers who know the industry pass on it, and by the time the price comes down to a realistic level those buyers have moved on and are not looking anymore. The seller loses time and loses the buyers most likely to close.

Undervaluing creates the opposite problem and leaves money on the table that the seller never gets back, unless a highly strategic broker put that price there on purpose. A deliberately lower price pulls more buyers to the table, and more buyers means more options, more leverage, and often a better final outcome than the higher number would have produced. The difference is intent. Both failures trace to the same cause, which is a number nobody stress tested before the business went to market.

Find out where your business actually stands before someone else prices it for you.

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The work behind the number

  • We recast the financials

    A tax return exists to make your income look as small as the law allows. A valuation needs the opposite view. We rebuild your financials to show the real economic benefit the business produces, which is the version a buyer is actually purchasing.

  • We test every add back against what a lender will accept

    Every dollar added back to earnings gets multiplied, so a soft add back does not inflate a valuation by a dollar. It inflates it by the multiple. We only carry adjustments we can defend with documentation, because those are the exact dollars that get stripped out in diligence after the business is already off the market.

  • We pull comparable sales in your industry and your size range

    Opinion does not move a buyer. Evidence does. We build the case for your price the way a lawyer builds a case, using what comparable businesses actually sold for rather than what anyone wishes they were worth.

  • We price against the debt the buyer has to carry

    Most sales close with financing, and a lender needs to see that the business covers its debt service with room to spare. A price that fails that test is not a price, it is a delay. Ours are built to clear it.

  • We walk you through it

    You get the number, the reasoning behind it, and a clear view of what would move it higher if you are not ready to go to market yet.
typical turnaround

One week, once documents are in hand and questions are answered

Judgment is the part you cannot template

The standard we hold the work to

The tax return governs when it conflicts with a profit and loss statement. Every figure traces to a specific form, schedule, and line. The math behind any adjustment gets written out rather than assumed. Nothing gets estimated quietly to make a number work.

That is diligence discipline rather than accounting discipline, and it exists because the report has to survive a buyer's advisor and a lender's underwriter reading it with an incentive to find problems.

Earnings hide where most people never look

On a recent engagement, the charitable contributions sat outside ordinary business income entirely, reported on a separate schedule. Anyone reading the bottom line of that return would never see them. We treated them as a discretionary add back, because the next owner carries no obligation to continue those gifts.

It only requires reading past the summary figure and knowing which discretionary spending a buyer would actually inherit.

Both are critical for your business, but they serve different purposes.

A CPA tells you what you owe. A valuation tells you what someone will pay, and what a bank will fund.

Five things that decide where you land

Two businesses with identical earnings routinely sell for very different prices. These are some of the factors that separate them, and they are the first things we look at.

  • Can the business grow without you, or does it plateau the moment you step back?

    Growth that depends entirely on the owner reads as risk to a buyer.

  • Would the business survive a slow month if you took two weeks off?

    Owner dependence is the most common reason a strong business prices below its potential.

  • Are the financials clean enough that a buyer's lender can underwrite them without a long list of questions?

    Clean books shorten diligence, protect the price, and keep financing on track.

  • How exposed is the business to one customer, one supplier, or one competitor?

    Concentration pulls value down regardless of how profitable the business looks today.

  • Would the business run the same way if you handed the keys to your management team tomorrow?

    A team that can operate without the owner pushes a business to the top of its range.

The goal is the right number

The goal is not the highest number and it is not the safest number. The goal is the right number, priced to sell without leaving money behind. Our owners hold the Certified Business Intermediary designation, and both of our senior business advisors will have theirs completed in 2027.

+90%

of the businesses we list sell at or above the listing price.

Because we price them accurately.

Straight answers

A CPA is a tax expert, and that is a different job. Their work all year is making your income look as small as the law allows, which is the opposite of what a valuation needs to show. A valuation reverses that view to reveal the real economic benefit a buyer is purchasing, then defends every adjustment against what a lender will accept.

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You are not committing to sell. A valuation is the first step in our listing process, and it commits you to nothing beyond that step. If you are even considering a sale someday, this is where that process starts.

See where your business actually stands today, then decide from there whether selling is the right move for you.

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Request a Valuation

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