Mark Osborne, MBA, CEPA®Enterprise Value Revenue Systems for B2B founders who want to break through revenue roadblocks, Modern Revenue Strategies · Agent Evers - Mark Osborne's agentic tool for building Enterprise Value Revenue Systems for B2B companies from $2M to $20M

How I Discovered the Power of Business Valuation

21 Dec 2025 · 1 min

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In this personal narrative, the speaker recounts a 15‑year journey in business brokerage that began after a long career in the non‑carbonated beverage industry spanning Eastern Canada to Florida. He describes how, upon the sale of his employer and approaching his 50th birthday, he transitioned into business brokerage. Earlier, in his 20s and 30s, he owned a small business but bought and sold it without any formal understanding of valuation, relying instead on a real‑estate agent. The experience sparked his fascination with the fact that small‑business valuation can be performed using established, industry‑wide guidelines that are also used by lenders and buyers, leading him to pursue brokerage as a profession.

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We started into the business brokerage business 15 years ago. I had a career in the non-carbonated beverage industry, which I started in Eastern Canada and over the course of a career ended up in Florida. Okay. And when the company I was with sold, I left with the owners. And as I was about to turn 50 and looking what's next, I discovered business brokerage. I'd owned a business in my 20s and 30s while I was also in the beverage industry, and I bought it without any idea on valuation, and I sold it without any idea on valuation. A real estate agent helped me on both of those. I learned a lot of lessons when I owned that business, but the idea that you could value a small business along an established set of guidelines that both people in our industry use as well as lenders and buyers, I thought that was fascinating.