Straight answers.

Ask one question: if someone wanted to buy my company tomorrow, would it be ready? A buyer isn’t purchasing your past. They’re purchasing the company’s ability to produce results after you’re gone — and they discount everything that depends on you, can’t be verified in the books, or exists only in someone’s head.

Our three-minute readiness check walks through the twelve things a buyer will look at first.

Not a number we will guess at. Value depends on normalized earnings — Seller’s Discretionary Earnings or EBITDA — and on what drives the multiple: recurring revenue, customer concentration, backlog, margins, the management team, and how much of the company depends on the owner. Two contractors each producing $5 million in revenue and $700,000 in apparent earnings can be very different businesses.

If someone offers $4 million, the honest answer to “is it worth $4 million?” is that it might be worth less and it might be worth considerably more. A properly managed market process, with clean financials behind it, is how you find out.

Don’t sign anything — including a Letter of Intent. An LOI can look simple and still set the purchase price, asset-versus-equity structure, cash at closing, seller financing, earn-outs, retained equity, working capital, exclusivity and restrictive covenants. Once you’ve agreed to those, your leverage is gone.

Independently determine whether the offer represents reasonable market value, engage a transaction attorney and a transaction CPA before you agree to terms, and find the problems in your company before the buyer does. That is transaction readiness.

It depends on the timeline you have. Three to six months is transaction-preparation mode: identify problems quickly, organize the financial and operational information, establish a realistic value, and correct what can actually be corrected before going to market. One to two years is a completely different opportunity — time to improve margins, develop management, build recurring revenue and reduce owner dependency.

Whichever it is, cleaning up the financials should start immediately — even if the sale is two years away.

Yes. Preparation should begin long before you want to leave, and the work that makes a company sellable — stronger margins, management development, documented systems, employee retention, a better customer experience, less dependence on the owner — is the same work that makes it a better business to own. If you ultimately decide not to sell, you still end up with something extremely valuable: a better business.

Maybe. You can sell a business yourself, particularly when a credible buyer already exists — a key employee, a family member, a competitor. The disadvantage owners underestimate is that you are emotionally attached to the business you’re negotiating over.

A strong broker or M&A adviser creates separation, protects confidentiality, qualifies buyers and can create competition among them. The biggest advantage isn’t finding a buyer — it’s discovering whether there is a better buyer, a better price or a better structure. But not every broker is the right broker: for a substantial contractor, the adviser should understand contractor transactions and the right buyer universe. See the Seller Team.

Before you sign a Letter of Intent or any other meaningful deal document. You don’t need an attorney billing you every month for two years while you prepare the company, but you do need a qualified transaction attorney engaged early enough to review the important terms before you agree to them. The broker and the attorney have different jobs — and you should retain an attorney who represents your interests.

Because the highest purchase price is not automatically the best deal. Taxes, purchase-price allocation, working capital, earn-outs, seller financing, retained equity, debt and transaction structure can dramatically change what you actually receive and the risks you keep. A CPA experienced in business transactions should evaluate the consequences before the final structure is agreed — not after.

Often it makes sense — your presence protects the transition, transfers knowledge and may protect seller financing or an earn-out. But staying temporarily to help a transition is very different from accidentally becoming an employee in the company you used to own.

Before you agree: define the job in writing — title, reporting line, decisions you can and can’t make, hours, duration, and what success looks like when it’s done. Then build a departure plan from day one. There should be a date. See owner transition.

Sometimes — but only if you evaluate the second investment as carefully as the first sale. Decision one: would I sell to this buyer on these terms? Decision two: if the cash were already in the bank, would I voluntarily invest it in this buyer, this management team and this plan? If the answer to the second question is no, be very cautious.

And always ask: twenty percent of what? What entity, what class of ownership, with what distribution, information, voting and exit rights, and how much debt sits above it. The percentage alone doesn’t tell you the value of what you’re keeping.

Electrical, plumbing, HVAC, mechanical, sewer, construction and service contractors — owner-run companies where the business and the owner have grown into the same thing. See Industries.

No. Most of our work is building the company — stronger margins, documented systems, leaders who run the business, a customer experience that earns trust — whether or not a sale is ever on the table. See Growth & Profitability, Operations & Systems and Leadership & Team Development. Every business should be built to sell; not every business has to be sold.

Yes. Technical skill alone doesn’t create an exceptional customer experience. We train technicians, service teams and office staff to listen before speaking, understand before recommending and serve before selling — to be trusted advisors rather than salespeople. On your site, with your people, with follow-up. See Speaking & Training.

Yes — keynotes for associations, industry conferences and dealer or supplier meetings, workshops for owner groups, and in-house training. The topics and how to book are on the Speaking & Training page.

No — and we don’t replace them. You need all three when you sell, and they should represent your interests. We help you assemble that team early, make sure everyone works from one set of facts, and make sure the decisions stay yours.

We don’t publish a price list because the work isn’t packaged. A company six months from a sale and a company two years out need different things. After the first conversation we tell you what we’d do first and what it would cost — and if we’re not the right people to help, we tell you that too.

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