The process
What actually happens, month by month.
Nothing about this is seamless. Here's what actually happens, month by month — including the part where diligence finds something.
Before any engagement is signed
Month 1
The valuation read
It starts with your last three years of financials and an honest conversation about why you're selling. You get a real number — one we would defend in a room full of buyers, not one that flatters you. Most owners are off by thirty percent in one direction or the other. If this is the wrong year to sell, we say so, and you've lost nothing but an afternoon.
Month 2
Secret shopping the market
Before anything carries your name, we quietly test the market. A handful of likely buyers hear about a company like yours — no name, no teaser — and we listen to what they would pay and what they would want fixed first. What comes back shapes everything: the materials, the buyer list, and the number we open at.
From engagement letter to close
Months 2–3
The materials and the list
We build the model buyers actually underwrite from — your pipeline, your market, your margin, today and tomorrow. Then the list: past the databases, to the operators and independent sponsors we know are looking right now. Getting the right ones in the room at the same time is the whole job.
Months 3–4
Management meetings
The right buyers meet the business — on a calendar we control, so competition does the pricing. You keep running the company. A business that misses its numbers during a sale process pays for it twice.
Months 4–5
Offers and structure
Bids arrive on different structures, and the highest headline is not always the most money. We model every offer down to after-tax proceeds — F-reorg, stock sale, 338(h)(10), rollover equity — and negotiate terms alongside price. We solve for what you keep.
Months 5–8
Diligence — including the part where it finds something
Diligence always finds something. A customer concentration, an add-back that doesn't survive, a contract that needed a signature two years ago. The difference between a bump and a broken deal is preparation, and how fast your advisor gets in front of the finding. This is the stretch where we earn the fee.
Closing — and after
Signatures, funds, and telling your team
The wire clears, and then comes the part nobody writes about: telling the people who built the company with you. We've sat on your side of that conversation. We help you plan it, protect the culture that made the business work, and step into whatever you've chosen next — rollover equity, a board seat, or a clean exit.
Get a real number
Request a confidential valuation read.
Call David. He'll give you a real number, and if this is the wrong year to sell he'll tell you that instead.