The questions owners actually ask us.

Honestly, with less false precision than most valuation tools suggest — and more range than a single multiple implies. Most profitable mid-market businesses change hands on a multiple of sustainable profit, often somewhere between four and eight times EBITDA, but that spread is wide for a reason. Where you land depends on how fast you’re growing, how concentrated your customers are, how well the business runs without you, and how much genuine competition we can create between buyers. The same company can be worth materially more to a strategic buyer who needs your capability than to a financial one simply running the numbers. We’ll give you a realistic, evidence-based range early — and, just as usefully, tell you what would move you towards the top of it.

The honest answer is usually “earlier than owners think.” Buyers pay for momentum and a credible future, both far easier to demonstrate while the business is still climbing than after it has plateaued — yet many owners wait until they’re tired, or until a difficult year forces the decision, which is precisely when their leverage is weakest. Market conditions matter too: buyer appetite, the availability of finance and sector sentiment all move in cycles. But timing is as personal as it is financial. Sometimes the right advice is to go now; sometimes it’s to spend twelve to eighteen months fixing two or three specific things and sell for meaningfully more. A short conversation will tell you which of those you’re looking at.

Usually one of three types, and they value you differently. A trade buyer — a competitor or larger group — often pays the most, because they can strip out cost or sell to your customers, though they may be someone you’re wary of letting near your data. A private equity investor backs the next stage of growth and often wants you to roll over some equity and stay involved. And sometimes the natural buyer is your own management team. The best buyer is frequently one you’ve never considered, and rarely the first to make an approach. Our job is to map the full universe, approach them discreetly, and run enough of them in parallel that you’re choosing between offers rather than negotiating against a single party.

For a well-prepared business, plan on ten to fourteen months from going to market to money in the bank — and the preparation beforehand can add several more. The rough shape is a few months to build the materials and identify buyers, a marketing and offer phase, then eight to twelve weeks of due diligence and legals once a buyer is chosen. Here’s the part owners underestimate: deals rarely fail on the headline number — they slip or collapse during diligence, when problems that should have been fixed early surface under a buyer’s scrutiny. That’s the real reason we push preparation. It isn’t only about a higher price; it’s about a process that actually completes, on your timetable rather than the buyer’s.

Simply, and deliberately aligned to your outcome. Most sell-side mandates combine a modest monthly retainer with a success fee payable only when a deal completes. The retainer commits both sides and funds the serious upfront work — the analysis, the materials, the buyer research — while the success fee, a percentage of the value achieved, is where we’re genuinely paid. That structure matters more than it first appears: because the bulk of our fee depends on the result, we have every incentive to hold out for the right buyer and the last increment of value rather than rush to any deal. On a mid-market transaction the percentage is naturally higher than on a large-cap deal, reflecting the work involved — and we’ll set every figure out in plain terms before you commit to anything.

Yes — and for most owners this is the single biggest worry, so it shapes how we run everything. Your staff, customers, suppliers and competitors need not know anything is happening until you decide the moment is right. We approach potential buyers on a no-names basis first, describing the business without identifying it; we release information in stages; and we share anything commercially sensitive only once a party is properly qualified and under a signed non-disclosure agreement. Leaks almost always come from moving too fast or approaching too many parties carelessly — which is exactly why a controlled, senior-run process protects you better than casting the net wide and hoping.

Ideally twelve months; better still, two to three years. It’s counter-intuitive, but the value you eventually achieve is largely decided before a buyer ever appears. Clean, reliable numbers; a business that doesn’t depend entirely on you; a spread of customers rather than one that dominates; a credible growth story — these are what buyers pay premiums for, and none can be manufactured in the weeks before a sale. Start early enough and they become genuine improvements to the business; leave it late and the very same gaps become discounts a buyer negotiates off your price. Even if a sale is years away, an honest look at where you’d stand today costs nothing and almost always pays for itself several times over.

You’ll want all three, doing different jobs. Your accountant is invaluable on tax structuring and your solicitor on the legal agreement — but neither runs competitive sale processes for a living, any more than we’d draft your SPA. Selling well is a distinct discipline: identifying and approaching the right buyers, positioning the business so its value is obvious, creating competition, holding negotiating tension, and steering the deal through diligence to completion. There’s also a quieter benefit — while we run the process, you keep running the business. Owners who try to do both usually find performance dips at exactly the wrong moment, and a buyer always notices. Protecting the value of the business while it’s being sold is, in itself, a large part of the job.

Sometimes, but usually far less than owners fear — and it’s more negotiable than most realise. Buyers commonly want a handover period, anywhere from a few months to a year or two, and some structure part of the price as an earn-out: money paid only if the business hits agreed targets after completion. That’s where care matters most. A higher headline price can be worth less than a lower certain one if too much sits in an earn-out you may never fully collect, or one whose targets you no longer control once you’ve sold. How long you stay, what you’re paid for it, and how much of the price is conditional are all terms we negotiate hard on your behalf — so the number you’re offered stays close to the number you actually receive.

Not at all — and increasingly, owners don’t. You can take significant value off the table now while keeping a stake in what comes next, through a partial sale, a private equity investment, or a management buyout. For many it’s the best of both worlds: real liquidity and reduced personal risk today, plus a second — and often larger — payday when the business is sold again in a few years, this time with a professional investor’s backing behind its growth. It isn’t right for everyone; it means taking on a new partner and a shared agenda. But it’s a genuine alternative to a clean, full exit, and weighing the two honestly is one of the first conversations worth having.