Illustrative scenario — a composite example, not a description of one specific past transaction.
July 21, 2026
The Business
A landscape design and maintenance company with a mix of recurring maintenance contracts and one-off design/install projects. The owner, who had run the business for 18 years, judged what it was worth by watching his monthly sales reports rather than his actual cash flow.
The Challenge
Revenue and value aren't the same thing. Once we built a normalized Seller's Discretionary Earnings statement — pulling out cost of materials, subcontracted labor, and add-backs like owner salary and a company vehicle — actual SDE came in well below what a rough 'percentage of sales' guess would suggest. The owner also personally managed every large design/install bid, an owner-dependence issue that would have pulled the multiple toward the low end of the range if left unaddressed.
Our Approach
We helped the owner separate recurring maintenance-contract revenue — the most valuable, most repeatable part of the business — from one-off install work in the marketing materials, and worked with him to have his production manager start handling bid walk-throughs for smaller jobs in the year before listing. That shifted buyer perception of owner-dependence and let us market the business on its recurring revenue base rather than its top-line sales figure.
The Outcome
The business closed within the industry-typical window, financed through an SBA loan, at a multiple toward the upper half of the range typical for a business of its size — a result his original top-line 'percent of sales' guess had badly underestimated. It's a pattern we see constantly: owners size up their business by the number on the sales report, when what actually sets price is Seller's Discretionary Earnings and the multiple your specific business supports.