One of the most disorienting experiences a business owner can have is asking three different advisors what their company is worth and getting three completely different answers.
I hear this more than you’d expect. A business owner does their due diligence. They talk to a broker, an accountant, and a consultant. They walk away with numbers that don’t agree and no clear picture of which one to act on.
It’s not because someone is lying to them. It’s because each of those advisors is using a different methodology, looking at different inputs, and optimizing for a different outcome.
The broker is drawing on market data and transaction experience to assess what the business can realistically command in the current market. The accountant is thinking about book value and tax implications, often conservatively because their job is risk management. The consultant might be using an industry rule of thumb that applies broadly but doesn’t account for the specific factors that differentiate your business.
None of them are necessarily wrong. And none of them may be giving you the complete picture if growing value is a top priority and you have the runway to do it.
What an owner actually needs is a valuation process that shows you how the number was built, what’s driving it, what’s dragging it down, and what levers you have to move it. That’s a fundamentally different conversation.
The question isn’t whether your advisors are doing their jobs well. The question is whether any of them are structured to serve as a dedicated value growth advisor; someone whose job is to help you actively grow that number in the years between today and the day you exit.
This matters because the valuation isn’t just a number for the day you sell. It’s a management tool for the years between now and then. When you understand what’s driving your multiple, you know what to invest in. When you understand what’s holding the number down, you know what to fix.
A solar energy company owner experienced exactly this value of true clarity. He was facing a decision about a major partnership that could either accelerate his path to a $12 million valuation or complicate it; and he had no rigorous basis for evaluating the decision. After going through a Business Value & Growth Plan, he had a clear picture of where the business stood, what the partnership would do to the valuation trajectory, and how to think about the decision strategically. He went through with the partnership and the business took off. His reflection: “I learned more from this one assessment in the last two weeks than I did with years of advisors. This is the single best investment I’ve made in my business.”
That’s what clarity does. It doesn’t just tell you a number. It gives you the strategic foundation to make the right decisions with it.
What you need isn’t a fourth opinion. It’s a dedicated process that starts with where your business stands today, establishes where you want it to go, and builds a roadmap for closing that gap. That’s what the Business Value & Growth Plan is designed to do; and that’s a fundamentally different kind of engagement than a valuation alone.
Rodrigo Passalacqua is Managing Partner at Exit Factor of Raleigh-Durham. If you want to know what your business is actually worth and why, reach out directly or visit https://exitfactor.com/raleigh-durham.
