Practical guides, articles and tools to help you grow, prepare, and know exactly what your business is worth — whenever you're ready.
17% of owners got an offer. Most weren’t ready.Plenty of owners sell after someone shows up with an offer they weren’t expecting. The deal usually goes one way. The owner wasn’t planning to sell, so the books aren’t clean. There’s one buyer at the table, and the buyer knows it. The owner ends up negotiating
Why Some Businesses Sell for Twice as MuchYou can probably describe your business in detail: the revenue, the margins, the customers you love working with. But can you say who is most likely to buy it one day?Owners who know who will buy their business, and what that buyer will pay for, build differently. They
Revenue concentration doesn’t just add risk, it triples your odds of a lowball offer. See the data, and how one Amazon seller navigated it to a clean sale.
The Hidden Metric That Can Transform the Value of Your Business Revenue matters. It gets you in the room with acquirers, it signals that customers want what you sell, and it is the foundation everything else is built on.But revenue alone does not make a business valuable. What often transforms a revenue story into a
Most business owners are obsessed with adding new customers. The sales pipeline, the marketing budget, the growth targets all point in one direction. Find more. Close more. Grow faster.
In M&A circles, there is a well-known concept called the Rembrandt in the Attic. It refers to a situation where an acquirer discovers an asset or capability inside a target company that the seller either undervalued, underutilized, or did not realize was there. Just like the classic trope of a homeowner finding a priceless masterpiece tucked behind old boxes, these hidden assets can sometimes be worth more than the core business itself once they are dusted off and put in the right hands.
Selling a business isn’t just about finding a buyer and agreeing on a price. From an ROIC perspective, it’s about managing risk, preserving continuity, and protecting deal certainty.
One of the most underestimated risks in any business sale is how and when employees are told. Get it wrong, and you invite uncertainty, resignations, and buyer concern. Get it right, and you reinforce confidence, stability, and value.
Gavin Bell had achieved the freelancer dream. He was known as “the Facebook ads guy” in Edinburgh, pulling in £30k/month with almost no overhead.
It was incredibly lucrative. It was also a trap.
While rewarding, his business was completely unsellable. His customers weren’t buying an agency—they were buying Gavin.
On paper, MotiveBase looked like a sellable business. It served blue-chip customers like McDonald’s, Target, and General Mills. It generated millions in revenue. Margins were strong. Yet when founder Ujwal Arkalgud first tested the market, acquirers hesitated.
These days, building and curating a personal brand online is often portrayed as a key to success. Entrepreneurs are told to put themselves at the forefront, to be the face of their business, and to leverage social media to grow both their influence and their company.
Most owners assume growth is the goal. More customers. More revenue. More staff.
And they’re right. Buyers do reward growth. But they pay a premium for companies that grow while keeping a positive cash flow cycle.
When an acquirer evaluates your business, they’re looking beyond what you’ve built. As successful as your company may be, buyers need to see how much larger it can grow to generate a return on their investment. That’s where Total Addressable Market (TAM) comes in.
Start with the free Exit Readiness Score a 13-minute online questionnaire that gives you an immediate view of how a buyer would see your business today. No obligation. No sales call unless you want one.
Tools and Insightful content for business owners who would like to focus more on how to protect, grow and build value in their business.
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