The book
Done Deal: Exit Without Regret
How to Prepare, Promote, and Protect the Sale of Your Business
The book your buyer hopes you never read.
On Amazon: Paperback, Hardcover, Kindle, or Audiobook. Read a free chapter first.
Before you sell
You sell products every year. You will sell the business once.
Selling your business may be the biggest financial transaction of your life, and most owners go into it knowing less about the process than the buyer across the table. Done Deal shows you what happens before, during, and after the sale, so you know what to expect before the process starts.
- How much is the business worth?
- What will a buyer see that you do not?
- When should you start preparing?
- How do you find the right buyer without the word getting out?
- What happens after you accept an offer?
- How much of the purchase price will you keep?
- What happens to you when the business is no longer yours?
I wrote the book to answer those questions, and the ones most owners do not know to ask.
The three sides of a sale
The business has to be ready. The deal has to work. First, you have to be ready.
01. Personal readiness
Are you ready to sell?
Selling changes more than your balance sheet. What do you need financially, what do you want next, and are you prepared to let go of the business you built? Most owners skip this part. It is the part they regret.
02. Business readiness
Is the business ready to sell?
See the company the way a buyer will. What drives value, what creates risk, where the business depends too much on you, and what you can fix before anyone sees a number.
03. The deal
Do you know what happens next?
How businesses are valued, marketed, negotiated, diligenced, financed, and sold, and the decisions you will face at each step. The buyer knows this part. After the book, so do you.
What is inside
The whole process, in the order you will meet it
- Before the sale: prepare before the buyer arrives
- What your business is worth, what drives that number, what buyers will scrutinize, and what you can do now to improve your position before going to market. Most of the money is made or lost here, before anyone negotiates.
- During the sale: get through the deal with your eyes open
- How the business is marketed, how buyers evaluate it, what happens when offers arrive, and how due diligence, financing, negotiation, and closing work. Including the terms that decide what you keep: working capital, seller notes, earnouts, and deal structure.
- After the sale: know what comes after closing
- What you keep after taxes and transaction costs, what the transition looks like, and how to prepare for the personal and financial realities of life after the business.
Free chapter
Read Chapter 24 before you buy.
You Have an Offer. Now What? Ten pages on what an offer means, how to handle a lowball, what never to say to a buyer, and how to work more than one offer at the same time. It is free. You do not have to give an email address.
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About the author
Thirty-four years on the owner’s side of the table
Ed Mysogland is Managing Partner of Indiana Business Advisors, where he has spent 34 years in business valuation, exit planning, and M&A advisory. The firm has closed roughly 2,400 transactions in that time. He holds the CVA, CM&AA, CEPA, and CMEA designations and hosts the Defenders of Business Value podcast. Done Deal is the conversation he has with every client before a process starts, written down.
Questions
What owners ask about the book
Who is it for?
Owners of privately held businesses who want to understand the sale process before they are in the middle of it. It does not matter whether you plan to sell next year or in ten. The earlier you read it, the more of it you can use.
When should I read it?
Before you start a sale process, and ideally before a buyer calls. Once an offer is on the table there is a clock running, and the time to learn how buyers think is before that, not during.
Does it explain how a business is valued?
Yes. It covers the fundamentals of valuation, what drives value, how buyers look at earnings and risk, and why the price an owner wants is often not the price the market will support.
Does it cover finding buyers, offers, and negotiation?
Yes. How a business is prepared for market, how buyers are found and qualified without the word getting out, what happens when offers arrive, and how to evaluate and negotiate a deal.
Does it cover due diligence, working capital, and taxes?
Yes. Those are the issues that surprise owners most, and they decide what you receive from a sale. The book walks through diligence, working capital, deal structure, financing, and taxes in plain language.
What formats is it in?
Paperback, hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook on Amazon, or buy direct from the store above.
Read it before the buyer calls.
If a buyer has already called, skip the book for now and schedule a conversation. The offer has a clock on it. The book does not.