Straight talk on selling a business in Texas.

Valuation

What is EBITDA, and why a buyer pays on it

Your sale price is usually EBITDA times a multiple. What the number means, how to normalize it, and how to raise it before you go to market.

Read the guide → Cash flow

Your AR aging report is a cash flow tool

The buckets matter more than the total. How to read the report weekly to protect cash, and what a buyer sees in it during diligence.

Read the guide → Valuation

How much is my business worth?

Value starts with earnings, not revenue, and the multiple is where the money moves. How buyers reach a number, and what you can do to raise it.

Read the guide → Readiness

Is one big customer cutting your price?

Customer concentration reads as risk to a buyer, and it can lower both your multiple and your cash at closing. How to fix it before you go to market.

Read the guide → Process

How long does it take to sell a business?

The honest answer is 9 to 12 months once you go to market, often longer counting prep. Where the time actually goes, stage by stage.

Read the guide → Readiness

Owner dependence: a business that needs you.

If it cannot run without you for ninety days, buyers see risk and cap the price. How to make the business run without you before you sell.

Read the guide → Deal structure

Asset sale vs stock sale.

Two deals at the same price can leave very different amounts in your pocket. Why structure decides who keeps liabilities and how you are taxed.

Read the guide → Deal structure

How earnouts work when you sell.

Part of your price, tied to how the business performs after the sale. How earnouts work, and how to keep yours from quietly disappearing.

Read the guide → Process

How to sell your business confidentially.

Sell without employees, customers, or competitors finding out. How a layered, confidential process works and the leaks that sink it.

Read the guide → Readiness

What a quality of earnings report is.

After the LOI, a buyer's accountants can shrink the profit your price was built on. What a QoE is, where it cuts value, and how to get ahead of it.

Read the guide → Deal structure

What a letter of intent really means.

The LOI is not the finish line. What it binds, the terms that matter more than price, and why your leverage peaks the day you sign.

Read the guide → Deal structure

Seller financing: why buyers expect a note.

A seller note is in most deals, and refusing one can cost you buyers and price. How it works, what it signals, and how to structure one that protects you.

Read the guide → Industry

How to sell a CPG business: what buyers pay for.

Revenue does not sell a consumer brand. Margin quality after trade spend, retailer diversification, and proof of shelf velocity do. How buyers value CPG, and how to prepare.

Read the guide → Process

What does a business broker charge?

Business broker fees explained: typical success fees, retainers, and the Lehman and Double Lehman scales, plus what Texas owners actually pay to sell.

Read the guide → Process

Strategic buyer vs financial buyer.

Strategic, private equity, and family office buyers value your business differently. Here is who pays the most, and how Texas owners create competition.

Read the guide → Deal structure

The working capital peg explained.

The working capital peg quietly moves your sale price after the LOI. Here is how the peg is set, where sellers lose money, and how to protect yourself.

Read the guide → Valuation

SDE vs EBITDA: which one sets your multiple.

SDE and EBITDA measure profit differently, and the metric decides your multiple. Here is which one applies to your business and how to move up the scale.

Read the guide → Readiness

Due diligence: what buyers will ask for.

What buyers actually ask for in due diligence, where deals stall, and how to be ready before you go to market. A practical guide for Texas owners.

Read the guide → Deal structure

Escrow holdbacks: why not all your money comes at closing.

Why part of your sale price is held back after closing, how escrows and holdbacks work, and how to keep more cash in your pocket. For Texas owners.

Read the guide → Process

When is the right time to sell?

The best time to sell a business is rarely the moment you feel ready. How to time an exit around your business, the market, and your own life. For Texas owners.

Read the guide → Valuation

What you actually keep after the sale.

Sale price is not the check you cash. How fees, debt, working capital, escrow, and taxes shrink net proceeds, and what Texas owners actually keep.

Read the guide → Valuation

Add-backs: every dollar is worth a multiple.

Add-backs can raise your sale price by hundreds of thousands. What add-backs are, which ones buyers accept, which they reject, and how to document them.

Read the guide → Process

What a business broker actually does.

A business broker runs a full sell-side process to create competition and protect your price. Here is what that really involves, and how it beats just listing.

Read the guide → Deal structure

Non-competes: what you are really signing.

When you sell, the buyer will want a non-compete. What it covers, how long it lasts, how Texas enforces it, and how to keep it from boxing you in.

Read the guide → Deal structure

Rollover equity and the second bite.

Private equity buyers often ask you to roll over some equity. What rollover equity is, how the second bite works, and where owners get burned.

Read the guide → Process

When to tell employees you are selling.

Tell employees too early and you risk the deal. Too late and you lose key people. When to tell your team you are selling, and how stay bonuses work.

Read the guide → Valuation

How recurring revenue raises your value.

Same profit, different price. How recurring revenue raises your multiple, what actually counts as recurring, and how to build it before you sell.

Read the guide → Deal structure

Selling a business that owns its building.

Own your building? Your three options when selling a business with real estate, and how each changes your price, taxes, and buyer pool.

Read the guide → Process

Selling to a competitor: highest bidder, biggest risk.

Competitors often pay the most for a business, and they are the riskiest buyer in the room. How to sell to one without handing over your playbook.

Read the guide → Process

Got an unsolicited offer? Respond without losing leverage.

Got a letter or call from someone wanting to buy your business? Why the first unsolicited offer is almost always low, and how to respond without losing leverage.

Read the guide → Process

Why business sales fall apart after the handshake.

Most businesses that go to market never sell. The five deal killers that break sales after the handshake, and how prepared sellers close anyway.

Read the guide → Process

Can your employees actually buy the business?

Thinking about selling your business to your employees? How MBOs get financed, what they really pay vs the market, and how to protect your price and exit.

Read the guide → Industry

How to sell a construction business.

Selling a construction or trades business? Why buyers discount project revenue, why your WIP schedule decides the price, and how to raise your multiple.

Read the guide → Readiness

How to prepare your business for sale.

Selling in the next few years? The two-year preparation plan buyers reward: clean financials, owner independence, papered contracts, and a ready data room.

Read the guide → Industry

How to sell an e-commerce business.

What buyers pay for when you sell an e-commerce business: profit quality, channel mix, inventory, and ad spend, plus how Texas owners prepare to exit well.

Read the guide → Industry

How to sell a professional services firm.

Selling a professional services firm means selling relationships, contracts, and people. What drives the price, and how Texas owners prepare to exit well.

Read the guide → Process

What is a CIM, and why it sets your price.

What a confidential information memorandum is, what goes in it, and why this one document sets the ceiling on your price before you ever meet a buyer.

Read the guide → Process

Selling a business without a broker.

Can you sell your business without a broker? When going it alone actually works, what you give up, and the math to run before you decide.

Read the guide → Process

Buyer meetings: the stage nobody preps for.

What happens in buyer management meetings when selling your business: what buyers test, how to prepare, what not to say, and how to keep leverage.

Read the guide → Deal structure

Cash-free, debt-free: the phrase that decides your payout.

Your LOI says cash-free, debt-free. Here is what that means, what counts as debt, and how it decides the check you actually cash when you sell.

Read the guide → Deal structure

Reps and warranties: the promises you sign.

Reps and warranties are the promises you sign in a business sale. What you are on the hook for, how long it lasts, and how to limit your risk.

Read the guide → Process

The team you need to sell your business.

Selling a business is a team sport. The four advisors you need, who does what, and why your everyday CPA and attorney are not your deal team.

Read the guide → Process

What happens after you sell your business.

Closing is the start of a transition, not a clean break. What happens to your time and your money after you sell, and how to plan for it.

Read the guide → Deal structure

Recapitalization: sell part of your business.

Selling does not have to be all or nothing. How majority and minority recaps let you take cash off the table now and keep a stake in the upside.

Read the guide → Valuation

Business valuation methods, explained.

Three ways to value a business, and why the market approach, a multiple on your earnings, sets the price for a founder-led company.

Read the guide → Deal structure

How to compare offers when selling your business.

The highest price is rarely the best offer. How to weigh cash at close, structure, certainty to close, and what you actually keep after tax.

Read the guide → Deal structure

How to sell your business to a family member.

Keeping it in the family is the easy part. How to handle valuation, financing, fairness to other heirs, and taxes so the deal actually works.

Read the guide → Process

How to sell a business with a partner.

The most common reason a multi-owner sale falls apart is not the buyer. It is the partners. How to align co-owners before you go to market.

Read the guide → Process

How to choose a business broker.

You sell your business once, and the advisor you pick moves the outcome more than almost any decision. The questions to ask before you sign.

Read the guide → Industry

How to sell a manufacturing business.

The equipment is not stacked on top of the price. How manufacturers are really valued, what buyers discount, and what to fix before you sell.

Read the guide → Readiness

How to set up a data room when selling your business.

The data room is where a deal is proven or quietly falls apart. What goes in it, how to organize it, and why building it early protects your price.

Read the guide → Exit Planning

Business exit strategy: the five options for Texas owners.

Selling to a third party is one exit, not the only one. The five paths out of your business, what each pays, and how to pick the one that fits your goals.

Read the guide → Valuation

Does growing your business before you sell increase its value?

Growth can add real money to your sale price, or a year of risk a buyer never pays back. What buyers pay a premium for, and when to sell now.

Read the guide → Readiness

Do you need audited financials to sell your business?

Most owners do not need an audit to sell. What buyers actually want from your books, the three levels of statements, and when an audit is worth it.

Read the guide → Financing

Selling your business to an SBA buyer.

For most businesses under $5M, the buyer uses an SBA loan. How that financing shapes your price, your cash at close, and the note you may carry.

Read the guide → Deal Structure

How to reduce the taxes when you sell your business.

What you keep is after tax, and structure sets it more than price. Asset vs stock, purchase price allocation, and the levers that lower your bill.

Read the guide → Process

How to sell a business with declining revenue

A soft year does not close the door. Why buyers price the reason for a decline, how to tell temporary from structural, and how to sell without a lowball.

Read the guide → Process

How to find a buyer for your business

The competitor you already know is rarely the best buyer. Where buyers actually come from, how a confidential search reaches them, and why competition, not one buyer, sets the price.

Read the guide → Deal structure

The purchase agreement: what happens between LOI and closing

The LOI is an outline. The purchase agreement is the binding contract, and that is where the real negotiation happens. What it covers and where the stretch goes wrong.

Read the guide → Industry

How to sell a trucking company

Buyers strip the fuel surcharge and underwrite cost per mile. Why your tractors are not added on top of the multiple, and the regulated diligence file that sets your price.

Read the guide → Process

Business broker vs M&A advisor: who should sell your business

The titles are unregulated. What actually differs is deal size, how buyers get found, and whether anyone creates real competition for your business.

Read the guide → Industry

How to sell a franchise business

You own the business but you do not fully control the sale. What the franchise agreement decides about your buyer, your price, and your timing.

Read the guide → Valuation

10 add-backs buyers accept, and 6 they reject

Every add-back is worth its own size times your multiple. The ten that survive a quality of earnings review, ordered by dollar size, and the six that get thrown out.

Read the list → Deal structure

Earnout vs seller note vs rollover equity

Almost no buyer pays the full price in cash at closing. Compare the three deferred structures on risk, control, taxes, and upside before you sign.

Read the comparison → Valuation

The 9 numbers a buyer checks before they make an offer

Before a buyer names a price, they run nine numbers. Here they are in order of how much a weak answer costs you, and what each should look like.

Read the list → Readiness

Keeping your key people through a sale

Buyers price the risk of losing your team. What a retention plan costs, who funds it, and when to have the conversation.

Read the guide → Process

SBA buyer vs private equity vs strategic buyer

The same business draws three different offers depending on who is reading the file. Compare price, cash at close, speed, and what changes after.

Read the comparison → Valuation

Revenue vs gross profit vs net profit vs EBITDA vs cash flow

Five numbers describe the same business and disagree about how good it is. What each one measures, what it hides, and the one a buyer multiplies.

Read the comparison → Readiness

Which contracts does a buyer actually inherit?

Your lease, your licenses, and your biggest customer may each get a vote in your sale. Sort every agreement by what it takes to move it.

Read the guide → Valuation

QoE vs audit vs review vs compilation

Four financial reports, four different jobs, and only one of them argues for your price. Compare cost, timing, and weight before you spend the money.

Read the comparison → Process

8 reasons deals die after the LOI

Signing the letter of intent is the high point of your negotiating position. The eight things that break deals after it, most common first, and how to stop each one.

Read the list → Industry

How to sell an HVAC or plumbing business in Texas

Home services platforms are buying hard across DFW. What separates a discounted company from a premium one, and the licensing problem almost no seller checks before closing.

Read the guide → Process

LOI vs purchase agreement: which one actually binds you?

The LOI binds your behavior. The purchase agreement binds your money. Which clauses hold, where your leverage goes the day you sign, and what has to be won before exclusivity starts.

Read the comparison → Readiness

Data room checklist: the 15 documents buyers ask for first

The first five documents decide your price. The last ten decide your closing date. The full list, plus the outside copy each one gets checked against.

Read the checklist → Industry

How to sell an insurance agency in Texas

Renewal commission is the asset. But carrier appointments are terminable relationships, not property, and change of control runs on a 61 day clock that starts later than sellers think.

Read the guide → Timing

Sell my business now or wait two years?

Waiting only pays if the plan clears a specific hurdle. The arithmetic of what two more years has to return, and the five things a real two-year plan contains.

Read the comparison → Deal structure

7 deal terms that matter more than price

Owners negotiate the price hard and then sign the terms that give it back. Seven of them, ranked by dollars, plus the one calculation that reverses how you rank two offers.

Read the list → Deal structure

Selling a business with inventory

Whether inventory sits inside or outside the working capital target changes what the same headline price is actually worth. How the closing count works, and how dead stock gets priced.

Read the guide → Exit strategy

ESOP vs management buyout vs third-party sale

An appraiser, a lender, or a room full of bidders. Whoever sets your price tells you more about the outcome than the structure's name does.

Read the comparison → Valuation

12 things that lower your business valuation multiple

Some problems cost you a discount. Others quietly remove whole categories of buyer from the table, which is what actually moves the multiple. Twelve of them, ranked.

Read the list → Deal structure

Selling a business with debt

Most loans get paid off out of the price at closing. The lien on file, the lender consent your note requires, and every personal guarantee you signed do not clear themselves. The Three-Exit Rule for each debt line.

Read the guide → Comparison

Selling a franchise vs an independent business

A franchise sale has a third party at the table who can approve your buyer, take the deal, and set the terms. An independent sale does not. Seven dimensions compared, plus the Three Votes Rule.

Read the comparison → Sell-side process

11 steps to sell a business, from the first call to closing

Valuation before repair, repair before the deal team, CIM and data room together, buyer list before process design, and all of it before the first NDA. Eleven steps in order, plus the one you cannot walk back.

Read the list → Timing

Selling a seasonal business: your peak, your trough, and the month you go to market

A seasonal business is not harder to sell, it is date-sensitive. Which twelve months get measured, when to launch, and why a flat-average working capital peg plus a peak closing hands value away.

Read the guide → Deal Structure

Staying on after you sell: employee, consultant, or clean break

Owners negotiate price for four months and the transition in an afternoon. What each of the three structures costs you, what your time is actually being paid, and how staying longer can extend your non-compete.

Compare the three → Exit Readiness

10 ways to reduce owner dependence in 12 months

Ten moves ranked by how much of your role each one actually transfers, on a twelve month calendar. Why the people moves belong in the first six months and the paperwork in the second.

Read the list → Deal Structure

Selling a business with government contracts

A federal contract does not transfer by bill of sale. How novation works, why the buyer's own size can disqualify your set-aside revenue, and the guarantee that outlives closing.

Read the guide → Sell-side process

Auction vs targeted process vs negotiated sale: how many buyers should see your business?

The number of buyers you approach is not a strategy, it is an output of two counts. Seven dimensions compared, plus the test that tells you whether you still have leverage after exclusivity.

Compare the three →