Two people, two realities, one number
The value of your company doesn’t exist.
At least not the way you think it does.
You spent years building something from nothing. Every decision, every crisis, every client – it all accumulates into something concrete and real. You feel the company is worth exactly what you poured into it. That feeling is genuine. The buyer just won’t pay for it.
The buyer sits across the table with a spreadsheet. They look at EBITDA, revenue structure, customer concentration risk. They calculate a multiple. They discount future cash flows. They arrive at a number – and it’s nothing like yours.
This is where the game begins.
Why sellers pull the price up
Sellers aren’t greedy. They see potential that hasn’t been monetised yet. They see the contract they just signed. They see the year ahead, which will be better than the last. They see themselves inside the company and ask: who will run this the way I do?
That perspective is real. It’s also invisible to the buyer.
Why buyers pull the price down
Buyers aren’t cheap. They see risk the owner has long since learned to live with – and stopped noticing. They see dependency on a key client. They see an owner who is the business, and they ask: what’s left when he walks out?
That perspective is equally real. And it produces a number that looks like an insult to the seller.
The gap is not a problem – it’s the process
Both sides are right. That’s exactly what makes company valuation in M&A something far more complex than a financial exercise.
Value is not objective. It’s the outcome of a negotiation between two versions of reality. The seller is selling the past and the potential. The buyer is buying the future and the risk. These two things rarely carry the same price – and the job of a well-run transaction process is to find the point where both sides can say: yes, this is fair.
There is no single value of a company. There is the one you see. The one the buyer sees. And the one you both agree on.
The third one is the only one that matters.
What this means in practice
If you’re preparing to sell, the question is not “what is my company worth.” The question is: how do I close the gap between what I see and what a buyer will pay?
That gap closes through preparation – clean financials, documented processes, reduced owner dependency, a defensible growth story. Done right, it doesn’t just close the gap. It moves the buyer’s number closer to yours.
Thinking about selling your business in the next 1-3 years? The first strategic conversation is free.