Where to start if you are thinking about selling
The first step is private, it costs nothing, and it is not finding a buyer. What to work out before you tell anyone.
Most owners who call us are not deciding whether to hire a broker. They are deciding whether to sell at all, and they do not have a real number to decide against.
The question underneath
"What is it worth" is rarely the real question. The real one is some version of: can I stop, and what does my life look like after. A number only matters because it answers that.
Which means the useful first step is not finding a buyer. It is finding out what the business earns when it is read the way a buyer reads it, and what that supports. You can learn that without telling anyone you are thinking about selling.
Nothing becomes public because you asked a question
Owners stall here, and the fear is reasonable: your crew hears, a competitor hears, your best customer hears. None of that follows from finding out what the company is worth. No listing, no advertisement, no call to anybody.
When a sale does start, it starts with a profile that names nothing, and your name goes out only after a buyer has signed. You decide when your people are told, and you decide on your schedule rather than a buyer's.
A first step that costs you nothing
Pull three years of tax returns and your last twelve months of statements. That is the whole input. From it you can get an honest earnings figure, a range, and the two or three things that would move it most.
Some owners read that and decide to go. Plenty read it and decide to wait two years and fix a couple of things first, which is often the better answer and worth more money.
A Straight Answer
Finding out what your company is worth is private and it commits you to nothing. The owners who do badly in a sale are usually the ones who learned their number from a buyer, during the negotiation, instead of before it.
BuiltEquity is a sell-side brokerage for trades and field-service companies. Nothing here is legal, tax or accounting advice. Your CPA and your attorney are the authority on your situation.