Mark Osborne explains how founders can increase company valuation beyond just growing sales or cutting costs. He argues that leadership and culture form a third, often-overlooked lever that matters especially for mid-market companies seeking acquisition or exit.
So my assumption and my experience is that founders, they want their business to grow, right? They want to outperform their competitors. They love building things. They love seeing the results of their efforts. And once they start getting towards an exit or an acquisition, say they want to buy something else and grow, you know, they want a great price, they want a great valuation, but they also want to take care of their people. They want to make sure that they're treated well. You know, they want their legacy if they've done something very unique to continue and to grow under the new ownership. And as you pointed out, the most common ways to increase valuation is to either cut costs, you know, reducing their spend, consolidating things, or increasing revenue, more sales, more marketing, changing the pricing up. There's a third option that I find often is especially in the mid-market because the bigger players obviously often recognize this. But it's through using the leadership and the culture as levers.
How Can You Maximize Your Business Value Before Selling? with Randy Katz Video
