r/businessbroker

Looking at a service businesses doing roughly $400K–$600K in revenue.

On paper, SDE comes out to around 50% of revenue, while a more normalized EBITDA lands closer to 35%.

The seller’s logic makes sense: the current owner works full-time in the business, so his compensation is added back and a new owner could theoretically step into that role and capture the full SDE.

But if the buyer wants to be an owner, not the foreman, that changes the picture quite a bit. Replacing the seller with a capable manager/foreman could easily cost $70K+.

Would you still value this primarily on SDE, or would you shift toward adjusted EBITDA for a buyer who does not plan to work in the business day to day?

I'm wondering how others deal with inquiries from search funds.

My experience so far is that they waste a lot of time and I don't pay them too much attention.

Am I missing the boat?

Pretty much the title. I’m making $120k/yr in my day job but I want to pivot into buying my own business. The funding isn’t the issue, it’s learning how to source deals and run a business.

This is something I’ve been passionate about for over 5 years, and I’ve done some research myself through YouTube and reading books like the “HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business”. But I feel like the only way to get true experience is to immerse myself within actual businesses/acquisitions. What’s the best way to find a mentor or learn from actual business owners?

I’m in a brand new city for work, and naturally free time is tight with the new job. But I do have an hour or so per weekday and more time on weekends. I know this is my ultimate goal in my career, and the sooner I can get exposure, the better. Thank you and I appreciate any input!

October marks my 1-year anniversary as a business broker in NC. I started part-time but am considering going full-time.

In 10 months, I’ve sold 4 businesses and earned about $50K net after my 50/50 split. I source 100% of my leads and handle the deals from start to finish with very little help from the firm.

My average gross commission is anywhere from 6%-12% of the final sale price.

I also have 2 deals closing in the next 30 days with about $100K in gross commissions, bringing my total net for the year to roughly $110K.

I’m currently paying a $200/month desk fee and giving up 50% of my commissions. Do you think I could get a better split elsewhere?

Honestly, I don’t see why I couldn’t do this on my own, but I’d prefer to stay with a firm for another year or two.

What do you guys think?

Have seen this question maybe a few ways, but just had a sobering instance.

Prospects using claude, chatgpt, or google AI summaries to ask for a valuation of their company.

As a niche firm, I’d say we have been the go to source for people knowing their market value. We even have solid SEO ranking and recently focused on AEO, which is working. BUT I’d almost say too good.

A prospect shared with me their AI google chat, the questions, and how it cited our articles to give them a range of expectations based on buyer type. It also summarized the common traps which could make those estimations more or less accurate.

Basically it hijacked our first sales call. Of course I had a few more discussion points about common deal structures, planning net proceeds, but like 80% of the usual first call we have with someone to discuss “Do those numbers make sense for you?” Was answered from google with relative closeness.

Thinking ahead but we already say our biggest competition is clients moving forward without us, and our experience says if they know what numbers to push for and a direct buyer is close they will try to DIY selling direct. We harp that people often get a better outcome working with us through the competitive process, but they don’t know what they don’t know.

Anyone else have similar experiences already? We already see several PRs of former valuations and opps selling without us. My guess is that’s about to increase.

I received an offer to sell my franchise business and wanted a sanity check before moving forward. Here's the summary:

Price: $50,000 total — $25,000 at closing, $25,000 paid over 12 months after
Closing date: targeted ~2 months out
Due diligence period: 15 business days, during which buyer can inspect equipment and walk away with a full refund of their earnest money if unsatisfied

Buyer's contingencies (deal only proceeds if):

• Buyer gets all required licenses/permits
• Buyer gets franchisor approval for the license transfer
• Buyer approves the franchise transfer fee
• Landlord agrees in writing to lease terms similar to current lease, confirming no outstanding rent owed

Seller (me) responsibilities:

• Provide Franchise Disclosure Document + transfer terms during due diligence
• Provide any other vendor/business contracts
• Keep running the business normally without telling staff/customers about the sale
• Confirm compliance with franchise standards
• Confirm no pending lawsuits/investigations
• Transfer all employees at same pay/roles/hours/benefits

Liability split:

• Buyer takes on liabilities only from contracts after closing
• I (seller) remain responsible for anything before closing — taxes, any lawsuits, liens, employee comp issues

I don't currently have any lawsuits, compensation disputes, or landlord issues, so those warranty clauses aren't a concern for me personally. Mainly wondering:

1. Is a 50% down / 50% over 12 months structure normal for a small franchise sale like this, or should I push for more upfront?
2. Anything in the contingencies or liability language that looks off or overly buyer-favorable?
3. Is 15 business days a reasonable due diligence window, or unusually short/long?
4. Also there's no written agreement that I'll be off hook from personal liability after buyer takes over. How do I get this? Should I bring this up with buyer?

Not asking for legal advice to replace an actual attorney — just want outside perspective before I go into that conversation informed. Appreciate any insight!

We were looking at a SaaS business that was for sale. Clean Stripe dashboard steady ~18k MRR, growing month ever month, On paper, so solid.

The revenue was 10000% real, real money moving, actual charges, actual cards, anyone would proceed and sign,

the thing that gave it away was the traffic,

We cross-referenced the stripe revenue against Google analytics using a tool that reads directly from source (Stripe/Google Analytics) not exported CSV/Excel file. and it showed that there is no enough organic traffic to support that 18k MRR.

For that it would need couple hundreds of customers. the math didn't work, There weren't enough humans visiting the site to plausibly be paying that much.

What was happening: the "customers were largely the seller's own cards (and a few friends). cycled through Stripe to manufacture an MRR, curved that looked like growth.

The lesson: revenue being real is Stripe does not mean the business is real, Real costumers leave a footprint. traffic, session, usage, ...

don't just verify the revenue, always verify that there is enough humans to explain it.

Not stuffs that comes up in deep diligence of course, it's in the early tell, the thing that makes you go "hmm..." before you've even opened the books. Curious what everyone's instinct is.

So i will go first, Revenue that's too smooth, real business are lumpy, Reas SaaS has churn spikes, a bad month, a seasonal dip, a refund cluster after a price change. When a revenue curve is a clean line with no texture, that's not stability. The absence of mess is itself the red flag,

second is a seller who's eager to show you screenshots but slowing the access to the actual sources. if the numbers are real, granting access is tricial,

What makes you walk ?

I’ve spoken to a west coast business broker who I follow on social media. He charges for a training course and a few months of 1 on 1 support. Presuming he’s as experienced and successful as he claims, would this be a good idea to accelerate the learning curve?

Hey everyone,

I wanted to start a discussion around a recurring technical issue I see during the M&A and business transition phase that completely tanks asset value post-sale.

When a buyer takes over a business website, web app, or digital marketing asset, they often rush to change hosting, revamp the layout, or update the domain architecture. If this transition isn't managed correctly, the organic search traffic and digital visibility can drop drastically within weeks, hurting the new owner's ROI.

From a technical standpoint, I have found three major bottlenecks that brokers and advisors should watch out for to ensure a smooth handoff:

1. The URL Mapping Oversight

When transferring ownership, buyers often change the URL structures of top-performing pages to match their internal naming conventions. If proper permanent redirects aren't mapped from the historical Google Search Console data, search engines index dead pages and users hit errors.

2. Database Disconnects on Dynamic Assets

For businesses running both a web platform and a mobile application layout, changing backend hosting servers without properly syncing the core API endpoints breaks user profile states and active tracking events. This destroys user retention data immediately after the handover.

3. Tracking and Attribution Loss

During an asset transition, legacy analytics tags and tracking pixels are frequently stripped or misconfigured. This leaves the new operator flying completely blind, unable to verify which marketing channels are actually driving revenue.

How do you typically advise buyers on auditing the technical health of digital infrastructure during due diligence? Do you include a pre-launch migration checklist in the transition playbook, or do you leave the web and app architecture entirely up to the buyer's post-closing team?

Curious what everyone thinks of the coming “silver tsunami” of Boomers here in America.

My 2c: Even though Boomers are currently at retirement age and we aren’t seeing a huge surge in business exits yet, I do think the real surge is coming later this decade. A lot of Boomers, especially those who built successful businesses, were never going to retire at 65.

How do you guys think this will affect the market? Will there eventually be so many businesses for sale that it becomes difficult to sell, or will buyer demand and available capital be enough to absorb the supply?

Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts or counterarguments.

LMM M&A Advisor ~1yoe

I am seeking to connect with a Business Broker. I have a UK SEO/Digital Agency for sale. Looking for feedback.

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Hi Folks,

Looking to start the process of selling Digital Marketing agency I've developed with my business partner for just over 10 years.

Two of us own this 50/50 and we are both selling. 100% of the shares, clean exit for both of us.

The Business

UK Digital Marketing agency, incorporated 2015, traded every year since. Fully remote. Monthly retainers doing search work for small and mid-market UK companies. Over 80% of revenue is recurring.

The Numbers

| Financial year | Turnover | Net profit |

| 2022-23 | £743k | £239k |

| 2023-24 | £666k | £284k |

| 2024-25 | £810k | £359k |

| 2025-26 (draft) | £738k | £294k |

Last year is down on the year before on both lines.

The Clients

65 active retainers, counted off the accounting system. Average client tenure is 5.1 years, median 5.6. Biggest single client is 9.6% of trailing twelve month revenue. Top five together are 28.3%. Sectors are spread across marine, manufacturing, home improvement and B2B software, plus some white label work for other agencies.

The Team

Six people including both owners. Neither owner does delivery. We are both sales side. Operations run through two salaried leads and a long-standing contractor, and all three stay with the business.

Four people can hold 65 retainers because we automated most of the reporting and audit and delivery of work ourselves. Client SEO reports went from two to three hours each down to about five minutes. Audits, task planning and a chunk of the client email now come out of our own internal system, running on finely tuned LLMs. That system and its code are included in the sale.

To provide an example of how automated: Rank checks, voice over video explainers for clients on their SEO reports trained to sound like the account manager of that client, task planning. Staff know what to do, self managing and clients are provided fully transparent reports detailing how long tasks have taken.

We also have our own content management system that clients utilise. Enabling us for quicker delivery.

Sales is done through our own marketing (organic).

Why we are selling

Nothing dramatic. Eleven years is enough for both of us and we want to do something else. No distress, no ultimatum, no lost anchor client.

What is for sale

100% of the shares. Happy to stay through a handover of up to two years if the buyer would prefer, on a service agreement kept separate from the sale documents.

Other director is happy to consider if buyer would like to do joint co-op together, but keeping it open at this stage.

What is ready

Eleven years of P&L, revenue and tenure client by client, a full information memorandum and a mutual NDA. No Quality of Earnings report yet.

Seeking a Business broker. Have been stung already - spent close to £10k to having an information/memorandum pack created, which lead to some very poor quality buyers, needing to chase the broker every few months (they went dead on us) and buyers seeking to source funding from a standard bank loan.

I suppose the ideal purchase would be a larger marketing agency, needing a department in SEO/GEO or another SEO agency looking for grow via acquisition.

Thank you for your time. Advice greatly appreciated.

I’m looking for high level data on home health care industry. I am considering this space for business acquisition but know very little about it. Goal is to be able to identify a good opportunity when I see one. What multiple is considered market? What is the base for the multiple? What are red flags? Beginning stages and looking to gain a decent understanding.