Looking at the 4 most important terms to know when selling your business: Valuation, EBITDA, Structure, & Diligence. Each of these serve it’s own important purpose in the sale of a company and we’ll define them in detail.

For founders thinking about selling their companies, we're fielding a lot of questions about whether they've missed their window. The answer depends a bit more now on market/buyer sentiment and their need for bank/mezzanine financing, yet still mostly on the businesses' transferability of economics and the founders' WHY in selling.

Wondering how big your company needs to be to attract the right buyers? Will they focus on revenues or profits? Curious about the process and players? Here's a few useful guideposts.

For many founders, decision making or just plain being decisive is key to their success, but there comes a point in time in a company's life where founder impulses fall short, and processes need to take their place...and Hope is NOT a strategy!

If you're a founder who's been offered an "earn out", this is for you. When your company's growth and the buyer's structure aligns, an earn out can work well for both of you, but make sure you understand that an earn out might make some of your sale price contingent on events beyond your control.

There’s a big difference between market intelligence and predatory behavior – armor up with the right advisor(s).

Interview with Kirk by Kevin Craine on the Everyday MBA Podcast

The Investment banker is worth millions and the wrong one can set your plans back by years.

If you're a founder and thinking about retirement or funding your next adventure, or maybe you'd just like to take advantage of the buyout boom, how do you know when it's the right time to sell? Here's a few key ideas to help with the decision.

We get this question quite a bit, especially now because we're in a buyout boom and private equity firms have junior associates cold calling and emailing business owners with unstructured offers for their companies.

Interview with Kirk by Mike Saunders of the Influential Entrepreneurs Podcast

The number one reason most founders don't sell comes down to the disparity between their expectations and the markets' realities. Understanding what you need from the transaction, finding out how that lines up with the way buyers will value your business, and being clear on your true bottom lines and the right structure can close or eliminate the gap.

If you're selling your company, or even taking in capital, there's a few things to expect from your buyer, and they're predictable behaviors based on buyer type. Prepare for them, and you'll be ready to respond appropriately, but fail to anticipate them and you might overreact and blow up your deal. Here's a few tips...

Do you want to retire? Do you want to do something else? Change your role? Are you burned out? Getting clear on this will help to navigate through challenges in every facet of your capital event!

If you're a founder going into a sale or financing transaction without professional advice, it's important to understand that your buyer is probably a full-time predator (they do this every day) and you are part-time prey (you'll probably only do this 1x). You need protection - a professional shield and maybe even an army on your side.

Guest Podcast by John Lee Dumas on EOFire

In case you missed it, we were featured on Entrepreneurs on Fire last week. EOF is John Lee Dumas' award winning podcast and a must listen for all founders! The topic was full-time predators (buyers) and part-time prey (sellers). We covered best practices and the Six Secrets to every successful sale. Here's a brief overview.

Lots of founders reached out last week after with discussed whether it's too late to sell their companies. A couple of key take aways emerged; 1) Still plenty of $ to do deals, 2) A-tier company deals are still moving forward, 3) Financing is still available for businesses with strong fundamentals.

If you're a founder or deal professional involved in a buyout or recap transaction, there will be a point in marking up documents and exchanging information where it might seem like your buyer is your enemy. Take a step back, check in with your WHY and the judgement of your advisors, and appreciate the nuance of negotiating versus battling.

EBITDA (pronounced E-BIT-DUH)… Here's a quick primer on understanding why this arcane accounting terms captures the transferrable economics of a business.