The exit your life’s work deserves.

Most privately held businesses are valued as a multiple of normalized earnings (typically EBITDA), adjusted for growth, customer concentration, owner-dependence, and recurring revenue. But the honest answer is that worth is discovered, not declared: the multiple a buyer will actually pay emerges from a competitive process. Be wary of inflated numbers offered to win your engagement — a defensible valuation is built from your financials and evidence of what comparable companies have commanded, and it should come with the reasoning attached.

A professionally run sale is confidential by design: buyers are approached selectively under non-disclosure agreements, the company is marketed without identifying details until interest is qualified, and employees typically learn of a transaction only when the owner chooses. Protecting confidentiality while you keep running the business is a core part of MaximForte's process.

Often, two more years changes the outcome meaningfully — most of what determines your final price (clean financials, reduced owner-dependence, a defensible growth story) takes time to build and cannot be fixed mid-process. The right first step is an honest reading of where you stand today; from there, the question becomes concrete rather than anxious. We wrote Issue No. 01 of The Owner's Brief on exactly this.

You can't — not from a single offer. An unsolicited buyer is negotiating against nobody, and their first number is an anchor, not a verdict. The only reliable way to test an offer is against the market: a confidential process that brings other qualified buyers to the table, or at minimum a rigorous independent view of value. Owners who respond to direct approaches without either routinely leave significant value behind — and give up negotiating leverage on terms, not just price.

That depends on choices made long before signing. Which buyers are approached, how the deal is structured, and what is negotiated into the agreement — employee retention, leadership continuity, brand treatment, your own role after close — all shape what the company becomes. Owners who care about legacy should say so at the start of a process, because it changes who the right buyer is. These outcomes are negotiable, but only while competitive tension still exists.

Start the family conversation before the market conversation. Alignment on who wants to stay, who wants liquidity, and what the business means to each person determines what kind of transition — outright sale, partial sale, or succession — actually fits. This is why MaximForte pairs transaction work with dedicated transition coaching: deals falter more often on unresolved family questions than on financial ones.

An exit advisor manages the entire sale of a privately held business on the owner's behalf: establishing what the company is worth, preparing it for buyer scrutiny, confidentially approaching qualified buyers, running a competitive process, and negotiating price and terms through closing. MaximForte serves as exit advisor exclusively to founder-led and family-owned businesses, with securities offered through Finalis Securities LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC.

Business brokers typically list smaller businesses publicly and wait for buyers to respond. An exit advisor runs a targeted, confidential process for more substantial companies: preparing the business over months, directly approaching strategic and private-equity buyers, creating competitive tension, and negotiating structure and terms — not just price. MaximForte operates in this second model, through a FINRA-member broker-dealer.

A confidential 30-minute call, at no cost and with no obligation, covering where your business stands today, what buyers would likely see, and what preparation would most improve your outcome. Owners leave with a clearer picture of their readiness whether or not they engage us.