The Part of Getting Ready to Sell That Is Not About the Business
A fair number of deals slow down for reasons that have nothing to do with the company. Your net number after tax, what you do next, family alignment, and what your team hears.
Murphy Business Sales – Raleigh guides owners in the Raleigh–Durham–Chapel Hill Triangle through selling, buying, and valuing businesses — led by Don Emmett, CBI, CeXP, a business owner for 30+ years before becoming a broker.

A fair number of deals slow down for reasons that have nothing to do with the company. Your net number after tax, what you do next, family alignment, and what your team hears.

Smaller businesses sell on a multiple of SDE, and the range runs from a little under two to around three and a half. On $600,000 of SDE that is a $900,000 spread. Here is what actually decides where a business lands in it, and in what order to fix it.

A composite from a smaller Triangle deal: price agreed, lender approved, diligence clean, and then six weeks of near-collapse over a lease with eighteen months left and no assignment clause. What the landlord, the lender, and the buyer each needed, and the one piece of paperwork that would have avoided all of it.

Owners ask what the market is doing and mean the headlines. The market that matters for a smaller business in the Triangle is a few dozen specific buyers and a lender. Here is what they consistently pay up for, what they walk away from, and what it means for your price and your timing.