Insights
Straight talk for owners and dealmakers.
Operator-grade thinking on the deals big firms won't touch: what actually moves the price of a business, how a buyer reads your earnings, and how to be ready before you go to market. Written by the people doing the work. No pitch, and we add to it over time.
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If you read three things.
Article
Two owners. Same profit. Very different price.
Two owners sold the same year with profit within rounding distance of each other, and walked away with very different checks. The gap was never the earnings number. It was how provable, how durable and how transferable those earnings were, and all three are things an owner controls.
Field Guides & Whitepapers
Institutional guides, free to read.
Downloadable, plain-spoken guides for owners and deal teams. Built to the standard of the ones the big firms hand their clients.
Field Guide
Bought, Not Sold
The owner’s guide to the five things a buyer scores before they pay, with an honest self-assessment. Read it in full on the site, or download the printed edition.
Field Guide
Getting to Yes on Capital
Why the answer is usually the package, not the business, and what a lender or investor opens first. The owner's guide to being fundable.
Field Guide
What a Buyer Checks
Proof of cash, add-backs, revenue quality, and working capital: the buyer's-eye read of your earnings, and how to get ahead of the retrade before you list.
More guides are on the way. Want one we have not published yet? Ask us.
Articles
Field notes on value, earnings, and getting ready.
Jared Luegers, CFA · 14 August 2026 · 10 min read
What a Quality of Earnings Report Won't Tell You
A quality of earnings report proves last year's profit was real and that the add-backs hold up. It cannot prove the customers stay, that the business runs without the seller, or that the profit survives the day you take over. That second column is where deals break after close.
Ryan Anoskey, CPA · 10 August 2026 · 4 min read
Add-Backs, and the Earnings a Buyer Is Actually Paying For
Every dollar of adjusted EBITDA carries the deal multiple on its back, so a $100,000 add-back moves the price half a million at five times earnings. Adjustments that survive are truth corrections with a file behind them, and each one has to pass two gates: classify it, then prove it.
Ryan Anoskey, CPA · 14 July 2026 · 5 min read
What a Buyer's Quality of Earnings Review Actually Checks
There are two numbers in every sale of a business: the earnings you report, and the earnings that survive a buyer's review. A buyer tests four things: your real provable earnings, whether the revenue repeats, whether the bank statements match the books, and the working capital the business runs on.
Jared Luegers, CFA · 3 July 2026 · 9 min read
How to Increase the Value of Your Business Before You Sell
You raise what a business is worth by making it less dependent on you and more certain for a buyer. Five levers do most of that work: clean numbers, a business that runs without you, a real second-in-command, a clear growth story, and books you could open tomorrow.
Jared Luegers, CFA · 26 June 2026 · 5 min read
Two owners. Same profit. Very different price.
Two owners sold the same year with profit within rounding distance of each other, and walked away with very different checks. The gap was never the earnings number. It was how provable, how durable and how transferable those earnings were, and all three are things an owner controls.
Jared Luegers, CFA · 8 April 2025 · 11 min read
Inorganic Growth 101: Laying the Deal Groundwork
Before an RIA buys anything, it needs a corporate development function: a clear strategy, capital lined up, a repeatable way to source deals, real diligence, and a plan for integration. Most failed acquisitions trace back to skipping one of those, not to paying the wrong price.
Selected Work
What the work looks like.
Named, client-approved case studies go here as engagements close. Until then, an illustrative walk-through shows the format and the kind of read we deliver. We never manufacture proof.
A Quick Self-Check
Twelve questions a buyer will ask before you sell.
If you can answer these cleanly, you are closer to ready than most. If a few make you wince, that is your punch list, and better to find it now than at the closing table.
If you, or your key person, were gone for a month, what would break?
Can you tie every dollar of profit you claim to the bank account?
Which add-backs could you defend to a skeptical buyer, out loud?
What share of revenue rides on your single biggest customer?
How much of the revenue recurs, versus starts from zero each year?
Who makes the day-to-day decisions when you are not there?
Is the plan written down, or is it in your head?
Could you raise price 10% and keep nearly every customer?
Do the monthly numbers close cleanly, and on time?
What is the business actually worth, and what would you net after the deal?
Who are the two or three most likely buyers, and why?
What will you do the day after the check clears?
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