Work with me
Selling a business is not a real estate transaction.
The documents are harder, the buyer pool is smaller, and the tax consequences are larger. Most owners do it once, and the buyer has looked at a hundred businesses before yours. Start with the situation in front of you.
How it starts
Three steps, and the first one is free
Tell me where you are
A short conversation about the business, the timing, and what is in front of you. There is no fee.
Get a straight read
What the business is worth, what a buyer will attack, and what the useful next step is. Sometimes that step is nothing.
Decide with a plan
Deal advisory, a valuation, an exit plan, or full representation through Indiana Business Advisors. You choose the door. I tell you which one I would pick.
Deal advisory
A deal is in front of you
An offer is on the table and you do not know if it is fair. A deal is already moving and you want a second opinion before you sign. Or you are the buyer, and you need help evaluating and structuring an acquisition.
This is experienced deal counsel without a full brokerage engagement, on either side of the table. I look at what the business is worth, how the other side is likely to underwrite it, what the offer leaves out, and what your next move should be. You leave with a clear read on the number, the structure, and the risks, and a recommendation on whether to proceed, renegotiate, or walk.
- Is the price a real price?
- Or a headline with the economics buried in the seller note, the working capital peg, and the earnout. Price is what the buyer offers. Terms are what you keep.
- What will diligence attack?
- Every buyer re-underwrites the business after the letter of intent. We find the soft spots first and decide what to fix and what to disclose.
- What does walking away cost?
- And what does signing this version cost. Both numbers belong on the table before you answer.
- Buying instead of selling?
- Same lens, other chair. Value, structure, and what diligence should test before you commit.
Exit planning
You are not selling yet
By the time you are negotiating price with a buyer, the real negotiation is over. How you prepared the business settled it. For owners who are two to five years out, that preparation is where the money is. Start with three free tools. Each takes about fifteen minutes. Nobody calls you afterward unless you ask.
Value Builder Assessment
Scores the business across the eight drivers a buyer pays for. In Value Builder System data, companies scoring 80 or above have sold at a 71% premium to the average. The score is a diagnosis, not a price.
Get your Value Builder Score
Freedom Score
Finds your Freedom Point: the after-tax number at which a sale makes you financially independent. Most owners have never done this math.
Get your Freedom Score
PREScore
Exit Planning Institute research has found that 75% of owners who sold profoundly regretted it within a year. This is about whether you are personally ready before you commit to a process.
Get your PREScoreThe assessments are built by the Value Builder System and delivered through Indiana Business Advisors. Your results are yours. I call only if you ask me to.
When the report is in hand and you want help acting on it, that is an exit plan: the two or three years of changes that move the number and make the business sellable without you in the middle of it. The companion to all of this is the book, Done Deal: Exit Without Regret.
Business valuation
You need a number you can defend
Before you go to market, answer an offer, or sign a letter of intent, you need a value that will hold up when the other side challenges it. The number you take into a deal has to survive the buyer’s accountant and the lender’s underwriter.
Indiana Business Advisors provides business valuations for transactions and exit planning: documented, credentialed, and built for the deal in front of you. Sellers use them to set a price before going to market. Buyers use them to decide what a company is worth before they make an offer. The work starts with normalized earnings, uses real transaction data for businesses like yours, and reads the company the way a buyer and a lender will underwrite it. You get a number you can explain, the assumptions behind it, and a clear view of what the other side is likely to attack.
This is deal work. I do not do litigation support or valuations for buy-sell disputes, divorce, or estate matters. If that is what you need, I will point you to someone who does it well.
In our shop, owners who get a valuation before going to market have a success rate above 80 percent. The ones who skip it are the ones who get surprised.
Full representation
You are ready to sell
Full transaction representation through Indiana Business Advisors, the firm I have led as Managing Partner since 1992. Thirty-four years and roughly 2,400 closed transactions. The buyer will have people sitting with them, and so will you.
- Prepare. Valuation, the story the market will hear, and the fixes worth making before the first buyer sees a number.
- Go to market quietly. Confidential marketing to the broadest sampling of qualified buyers, with your name and your company’s name protected until a buyer has earned them.
- Qualify. We screen every buyer for fit and for the money before they get your information.
- Manage diligence. We run the data room, the questions, and the timeline so the deal does not stall in the weeks after the letter of intent.
- Negotiate and close. Price, terms, structure, and what happens the day after closing, negotiated by someone who has done it before.
If a full engagement is the right door, I will say so. If a conversation or a valuation is the right first step, I will say that too.
Questions
What owners ask before they call
Is this a brokerage engagement?
Only if you want full representation and we agree that is the right next step. Deal advisory, a second opinion, and a valuation can stand alone. A sale engagement runs through Indiana Business Advisors.
How big does my company need to be?
Most of the owners I work with run companies between $500,000 and $25 million in revenue. If you are outside that range, call anyway. I will tell you if I am the wrong person and who the right one is.
Do I have to be in Indiana?
No. The practice is based in Indianapolis. I have advised owners in 38 states, and advisors elsewhere in the country are fine.
Do you work with buyers?
Yes. If you are evaluating an acquisition and need help with value, structure, or what diligence should test, start with a conversation.
What happens on the first call?
We figure out where you are, whether I am the right person, and what the useful next step is. Sometimes that is a second look at an offer. Sometimes it is one of the assessments. Sometimes it is nothing.
Will you call me after I take an assessment?
No. The three tools are free and ungated beyond the tool itself. A call happens only if you ask for one.
How long does a sale take?
Most sales run six to twelve months from going to market to closing, and the preparation before that is where the time is best spent. An owner who starts two to three years out has choices. An owner who starts after the buyer calls has fewer.
Tell me where you are in the decision.
A buyer called, you are planning a sale, you need a number you can defend, or you are an advisor with a client facing one of those. Start with a conversation. Thirty minutes, no fee, and you leave knowing the next step.
If the calendar is full, call 317-218-8616 or send a note and I will find a time.