Selling your firm
The consolidators are acquiring in Texas. They are good at this, they do it constantly, and the owner across the table has usually done it once. That asymmetry is the whole reason sell-side representation exists.
Start with the number, not the decision
Most conversations here begin with a valuation and go no further for a couple of years, and that is a perfectly good outcome. Knowing the number changes how you run the business whether or not you sell — what work you chase, what you document, what you stop doing.
There is no listing agreement to sign before that conversation, and no fee for it.
What a buyer is actually paying for
Not revenue. Across every trade we work in, the price is driven by how much of the work comes back each year without anyone selling it again.
- The recurring base. Contracted, scheduled, documented work is the single most valuable thing most of these businesses own, and the one most often undersold because it is never separated out on the P&L.
- Licences and the people who hold them. Which licences the business runs on, and whether the people qualified to hold them stay after closing.
- Customer concentration. If three accounts are half the revenue, the buyer prices that risk in. Knowing the figure before they ask is worth real money.
- Clean books and clean records. Not glamorous. Reliably the difference between a smooth diligence and a retrade.
Why an unrepresented sale usually goes badly
Rarely because the buyer is dishonest. Usually because a single bidder sets the price, the owner has no comparison, and the deal terms — earnouts, escrow, working capital, how long you have to stay — get negotiated by someone who has never seen them before against someone who negotiates them monthly.
The headline multiple is not where most value is won or lost. The terms underneath it are.
Already had an approach?
It happens often, and the offer is frequently reasonable — but reasonable and best are not the same thing. Bring it before you sign anything. A letter of intent usually carries an exclusivity clause, and once it is signed your leverage is largely gone.
What we know going in
We track these markets from public records rather than from rumour. Before a first call we generally know how long you have held your licences, which trades you hold, whether you own your premises, and which of your apparent local competitors have already been bought by a national platform without changing their sign.
Knowing who is genuinely independent, and who has already sold, is the starting point for knowing who might buy you.