The question that actually matters is not what I will pay. It is how much of your time I am about to take, and where you can stop without having lost anything.
So here is the whole sequence, including the part after we close.
You tell me what the business does and why you are thinking about selling. I tell you honestly whether it is the kind of business I am looking for. No paperwork, nothing signed, no broker in the middle unless you want one there.
If it is not a fit, I say so on this call rather than three weeks later.
Three years of profit and loss, three years of tax returns, and a current customer list with names removed if you would rather. I sign before you send anything.
Your bookkeeper can usually pull all of it in an hour. Untidy books are the normal case and not a reason to hold off.
Two weeks. I normalise the earnings, model the debt service, and come back with a number and the arithmetic behind it. You will see how I got there, not just the figure.
If the number is lower than you hoped, you will at least know which line caused it.
Price, structure, and what happens to your people, written down. Your attorney reads it. Nothing here is binding except confidentiality and a short exclusivity window.
If you want to stop, this is the cheapest place to stop.
The longest and least pleasant stretch. An SBA lender will ask for more documents than you expect and will ask twice. I keep the list in one place and chase the lender rather than forwarding you their emails.
This is where deals come apart, usually over something in the lease or the books that nobody looked at in step three.
I am the buyer and I am the operator. There is no fund behind me deciding what happens to your crew, and there is nobody to hand it off to.
Whatever transition you want, from two weeks to two years, we write down before close.
Most buyers stop the story at the closing table. This is what the year after it looks like, as specifically as I can put it before I have met your company.
I would be learning the business: meeting everyone, understanding the workflows, knowing who to go to for what. Getting my name on the accounts, and making sure I can track an invoice all the way down through the income statement and the balance sheet. Taking notes, identifying opportunities, and keeping everything upright.
Leveraging that transition period and picking the owner’s brain as much as I can, so that when you ultimately step out fully I am ready to handle most day-to-day operations. The length of that is yours to set.
The phone gets answered. You come up when somebody searches for what you do. The check-in call lands before the contract lapses rather than after it. None of that is a change to how the work gets done — it is the same work, reaching more people.
The person carrying a process in their head is the person who cannot take a holiday. Getting it out of their head is what lets them take on the thing they are actually good at, and as somebody gets better they earn the right to bigger responsibilities.
Who knows? It might be going great. Anything larger waits until I have earned an opinion, and I would rather earn the right to change something than assume it.
If you carry a note, you are my creditor for years after closing, and you should not have to chase me for a picture of the business you built. You get the numbers monthly, for as long as you want them.
If you’re years away from selling, that’s the normal case. Book it anyway.