What Helps a Business Sale Actually Reach the Closing Table?
By Troy Frank, Owner — Indiana Equity Brokers Estimated read time: 6 min The short answer: Roughly half of business sales that enter due diligence never make it to closing. The deals that do close share four traits: the buyer and seller align on all terms early — not just price — the seller’s financials hold up under scrutiny, both sides disclose problems before due diligence finds them,...Read More
The Business Was Worth More Three Years Ago
By Troy Frank, Owner, Indiana Equity Brokers Estimated read time: 6 min The short answer: The best time to sell a business is while it’s still growing, not after momentum fades. Owners who wait until a health scare or burnout forces the sale usually accept a lower price, because buyers discount stagnant, owner-dependent companies. A business that might earn 4 to 5 times EBITDA while...Read More
What Makes a Business Worth More?
By Troy Frank, Owner, Indiana Equity Brokers Estimated read time: 6 min The short answer: A business is worth more when a buyer can see steady profits, low risk, and a company that runs without the owner. The biggest business value drivers are recurring revenue, a diversified customer base, a real management team, clean financials, and consistent growth. Two businesses with the same earnings...Read MoreDeal Structure When Selling a Business
By Troy Frank, Owner, Indiana Equity Brokers Estimated read time: 6 min The short answer: Two offers at the same price can leave you with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ difference in real, after-tax cash. Deal structure decides what you keep, and it comes down to how much is cash at closing, how much is a seller note, and how much is rollover equity. Roughly 70 to 80 percent of small...Read More
Can a Landlord Kill Your Business Sale?
The short answer: Yes — a landlord can block or delay a business sale, even after a buyer and seller have agreed on price and terms. When a business is sold, the commercial lease typically must be assigned to the new owner, and most leases require landlord approval to do that. If your lease has unfavorable assignment language, a short remaining term, or a difficult landlord, it can stall your...Read More
Why Do Business Sales Fall Apart After Both Sides Agree?
The short answer: About half of all business sales that reach the due diligence phase never close. The most common reasons have nothing to do with price — they’re due diligence surprises, messy financials, customer concentration, disagreements over reps and warranties, and sellers who weren’t fully ready to sell. Most of these problems are fixable, but only if you find them before...Read More
How to Negotiate the Sale of Your Business
The short answer: Skilled negotiation typically moves the final sale price of a business by 8–15% above what a seller would achieve without it — and on terms like deal structure, earn-outs, and tax allocation, the variance can be even higher. On a $2M Indiana business, that’s $160K to $300K decided at the negotiating table, not in the marketing phase. The seven strategies below are the...Read More
Selling a Family Business
Selling a Family Business in Indiana: What Happens When Succession Doesn’t Go as Planned You built something worth keeping. The plan was always to hand it down — to a son, a daughter, maybe a nephew who’s been working the floor since he was sixteen. But somewhere along the way, that plan got complicated. Maybe the kids aren’t interested. Maybe they’re interested but...Read More
Exit Planning: Why Owners Who Plan Early Sell for More
Most Indiana business owners don’t start thinking about selling until something forces the conversation — a health scare, a partner dispute, a burnout year, or a buyer who knocks on the door unsolicited. By then, most of the levers that actually move a sale price are already locked in. Business exit planning in Indiana isn’t a retirement-age activity. It’s an operating...Read More
