I constantly see people make seemingly small mistakes that add up to big calculation errors when valuing their small businesses. 

One common error is valuing a small business as a multiple of EBITDA instead of SDE. EBITDA is more accurate when valuing a company with a management team in place that usually has more than 50 employees. SDE is the more accurate measurement for owner-operated small businesses with 5-50 employees. 

​The size of your business matters. Why? Because it affects how quickly your business is sold. And in these uncertain economic times, how quickly your business sells matters now more than ever. 

Each transaction matters when you’re selling a business, regardless of what tier it falls into (mom and pop, main street, large corporation, etc.) As a premium main street business, you can’t exactly advertise that your company is for sale. These sales must remain confidential so that you don’t upset the balance of the business’ economy. So let’s walk through the various sizes of companies and what you can expect when selling one.

One of the most common questions asked when deciding to buy or sell a company is what it is worth. 
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Determining a company’s value requires the consideration of multiple factors to make up one all-encompassing number, usually known as the MPSP or most probable selling price. 

Here, we break down three parts of determining a company’s valuation and what they mean for you.

​One of the most common questions I’m asked about in my line of work is, “how much is my company worth”?

And the two things clients always seem to focus on and confuse, are goodwill value and blue sky value. 

Maybe you’ve heard this jargon used before or maybe it’s completely new territory for you. Either way, let’s dive into what these terms are and why they matter to you.

If you’ve been in business for a while, you know how complicated your books can get. This is especially true if you’ve accumulated many clients and built up an expense sheet longer than your grocery list.

Keeping up with the expenses and revenue can be one of the most tedious tasks we face in the backend of our businesses. When you decided to start your own business, you probably weren’t dreaming of all that time you’d spend making sure each purchase is tracked, recorded, and in line with the revenue coming in. But you also get that this habit is necessary so that you can be sure you’re doing everything legally and avoiding any future issues with the IRS.

When business owners come to me ready to sell their business, but they haven’t taken the necessary steps to ensure a clean record, I have to tell them that their business isn’t as valuable as they may think. And that really sucks.