Professional Business Broker in Louisiana

Sale price is the headline; net proceeds are the reality. From the headline number, you subtract advisor fees (success fee + any engagement fee), legal and accounting at closing, payoff of any business debt the buyer isn’t assuming, working-capital true-ups, and then state and federal taxes on whatever’s left. The order matters because it determines how much room you have to negotiate. We model net proceeds at the start of every engagement so you know, with real numbers, not rule-of-thumb percentages, what you actually walk away with at each price point. Most sellers see this for the first time at the closing table. That’s too late.

Confidentiality is the #1 unspoken fear and the easiest way for a sale to go sideways. Our process is built to keep your name and your company’s identity out of the market until a qualified buyer signs a non-disclosure agreement. Public marketing materials are blind; the teaser doesn’t name the business; even our outreach to PE and strategic acquirers happens under code-name until they prove qualification. Your key people, customers, and competitors hear about the sale on your timeline, not from a leaked listing or a casual conversation at an industry event.

At your size, three buyer pools matter: sophisticated individual buyers (search funds, executives leaving corporate, family offices buying for the next generation), private equity and search-fund-backed platforms, and strategic acquirers in your industry. Most M&A advisors at this size only know how to work the PE side. We run both, and individual buyers often pay more with less invasive due diligence than PE. The right buyer for your business depends on revenue, EBITDA, recurring vs. project revenue, owner dependence, growth story, and what you want post-close. We map those before we approach anyone.

For a sell-side engagement where the business is ready for the market: typically 6–12 months from kickoff to close. The first 30 days is pre-market diagnostics (valuation, Value Builder Score, 8 Drivers read) so you know what a buyer sees before they see it. Months 2–3 are marketing and indicative offers. Months 4–6 are letter-of-intent, due diligence, and definitive agreements. If exit planning is needed first, cleaning up the books, reducing owner dependence, fixing the customer concentration risk, add 12–36 months on the front. We tell you which path applies after the first 30 days, not before.

Yes, and the longer you wait, the more it costs you. Buyers and their lenders price a business off of normalized EBITDA, what the company earns once owner-specific expenses and non-recurring items are stripped out. If your books mix personal expenses with business expenses, comp isn’t market-rate, or revenue recognition is informal, every dollar a buyer can’t trust gets discounted. Our pre-market diagnostics (valuation under NACVA Professional Standards + Value Builder Score) tell you exactly where you stand and what to fix. Many owners discover they were leaving 20–40% of value on the table from accounting issues alone.

It changes things for the better. Your existing advisors stay, we work alongside them, not around them. Your CPA knows your business; your attorney protects your interests; your financial planner understands your post-close goals. Most M&A firms create turf wars with these advisors because they’re afraid of losing the client. We do the opposite: we cooperate, we share information, and we fill only the gaps in the deal team where specific M&A expertise is needed (transaction-side legal, tax structuring, buyer-side due diligence response). Your team gets stronger, not replaced.

For sell-side engagements: a modest engagement fee at the start (which covers pre-market diagnostics and is credited against the success fee at close), plus a success fee at closing based on transaction value. The success fee is structured so we only do well when you do well, and we’re explicit about the percentage and the breakpoints before you sign anything. For business valuations: flat fees, published on the valuations page, ranging from a Calculation of Value (2–3 days) to a Conclusion of Value (1–2 weeks). For exit planning engagements: scoped per Gate (1, 2, or 3) of the EPI methodology. No hidden fees, no markup on third-party costs, no surprises at closing.

Honest answer: we are a brokerage, and we’re also M&A advisors who help improve the business before, during, and after the sale. Most business brokers do what we call “spray and pray”, sign a listing agreement, throw it on a bunch of websites, spend no money on it, and hope to find one buyer before the agreement expires. We use those same websites. We also run a structured process that drives multiple qualified buyers to make offers at the same time. Competition is the only ethical way to move the needle from what a single buyer thinks you’ll take to what your business is actually worth to you. The methodology is the Structured Sale™.