Your multiple is not only a future exit number. It is a live grade on what you have built.
Most owners start with "What is my firm worth?"
Better question: which curve is the firm on, and what would have to change to reach a better one.
A services firm can be bought as a tuck-in, built as a platform, or repositioned into a stronger peer group. Those are different buyer conversations. Same EBITDA can land in different places.
I use three decisions.
When
A forced sale and a planned sale are not the same asset. If you need out fast, buyers underwrite the firm as it is today. If you have time, you can remove the discounts that shrink who will pay up.
How you sell (or don't)
A tuck-in is valued for fit inside someone else's platform: niche, clients, talent, geography. You do not need to be a complete platform because the buyer already has the machine.
Being the platform is different. Buyers pay for a firm that can operate, grow, and acquire without the founders carrying every relationship. That needs depth, process, and earnings that transfer.
You can also stay independent. That is still a how-you-sell decision: you are choosing not to sell yet, on purpose.
What kind of firm
Stay as you are, or become a different kind of firm before you go to market. Repositioning is not a slide. It is operating change: founder dependency, client transfer, margin quality, management layer, sometimes tuck-ins of your own.
Those three decisions pick the curve. They are not a valuation certificate.
What owners usually leave to chance
Most owners run the P&L hard and leave the Multiple to chance. Brokers show up for the transaction. Almost nobody helps you work the Multiple on purpose beforehand.
That is Multiple Strategy. Not brokerage. Not a valuation certificate. An outside-in read of the curves in your lane, and the decisions that still change which one you land on. No success fee.
If you want a starting point, begin with a free outside-in read: send your company URL. From public information we build a short read of the firms buyers would compare you to, what they tend to pay for, and the one or two moves most likely to lift your Multiple. No prep. Yours to keep.
If you want to talk it through, book an optional 20-minute walk. If a fork is worth owning later, a written Multiple Strategy is a fixed fee agreed up front. See how we work.
Built for owner-led services firms in the US and Canada. See who we help.