You spent thirty years building it. Selling it takes nine months and one good advisor.

Here is the part most advisors will not say out loud: the first offer an owner receives is almost never the best one available, and it usually arrives unsolicited from a buyer who already knows exactly what the business is worth.

You do not. That asymmetry is the whole game, and it is the reason we exist.

I have bought dozens of companies, run three, and sold four. I have sat through the diligence request lists, the retrade attempt at week eleven, the quality-of-earnings report that found something nobody expected. When I tell you a number is achievable, it is because I have paid it or been paid it.

Before we talk about hiring anybody, get the number. It is free, it takes two weeks, and if the answer is “not yet” we will tell you that instead of opening a process.