Across more than eighty advisory engagements with mid-market consulting and technology-services firms, the same patterns turn up. Some are obvious. Some are the opposite of what every conference panel says. The ten below are the ones we find ourselves explaining most often.
1. The founders who exit best are the ones who are ready three years before they need to be
The single biggest determinant of exit value is not the multiple, it is the runway. Founders who start preparing the business at 60% of the eventual exit value, then spend three years closing the gap, consistently realise 1.5 to 2 turns more than founders who decide to sell after a good quarter. The work compounds. The work cannot be done in a hurry.
2. Almost every firm overestimates its differentiation by a factor of two
Every founder we meet describes their firm in language that, if their three closest competitors used the same language, would be indistinguishable. The honest test: take your "why us" deck. Replace your firm name with two competitors. Show it to a client. If they cannot tell which is which, you do not have differentiation. You have a vocabulary.
3. The pillar that moves least and matters most is Business Development
Of the seven pillars in our framework, Business Development is the most often the lagging score, the most often founder-attached, and the most often left until last. It is also the pillar that buyers value most, because everything else can be operated, and BD is the only one that can't be inherited.
4. Founders almost always know what is wrong, they just have not heard themselves say it
Most of the value in the first three sessions of an advisory engagement is not new information. It is the founder articulating, out loud, things they have known for two years. Our job is to ask the question that makes the unspoken obvious. Once it is said, the action is usually clear.
5. The firms with the best people retention are the ones who hire slowly and fire honestly
The firms running 90%+ retention have, almost without exception, two operating habits. They take longer to hire than competitors of comparable size (often three rounds plus a working session). They have a faster, kinder process for managing out the wrong fit. The combination produces a senior team where everyone wanted to be there and is still glad they came.
6. The biggest single lift in valuation comes from converting repeated revenue to contracted revenue
We have written about this elsewhere. Worth restating: the act of putting a multi-period contract around what was previously an annual handshake adds 1.5 to 2.5 turns of EBITDA at exit. The work is administrative. The value is structural.
7. Pipeline cadence beats pipeline volume
A firm with £8m of pipeline that converts predictably at 22% across four quarters is more valuable than a firm with £14m of pipeline that has lumps and gaps. Buyers pay for predictability. The work to build cadence (weekly review, defined stages, owned-by-name accountability) is dull. It is also the single biggest driver of pipeline credibility in diligence.
8. The most useful question we ask: "what would your number two say is broken?"
Founders describe the business they want it to be. The number two describes the business it actually is. The gap between the two answers is, almost always, the prioritisation list for the next 18 months. We ask this question in the first hour of every engagement.
9. The most expensive mistake in M&A is engaging the wrong adviser six months too late
The firms that get good outcomes engage their corporate-development partner 12-18 months before they intend to go to market. The work in those months (positioning, financial controls, removing concentration risk, codifying IP) typically adds 1-2 turns to the eventual multiple. The firms that engage three months before going to market lose those turns and pay an adviser to chaperone a process they no longer have time to optimise.
10. The founders who enjoy the next chapter most are the ones who plan for it
Of the founders we have helped exit, the ones who land well after the deal are the ones who answered the question "what comes next" before the wire arrived. The ones who didn't spent the following 18 months feeling unmoored, often re-entering the market in a role they did not need to take. The deal closes one chapter. The next one needs writing too.
The pattern across all ten
The strongest signal we see, across eighty engagements, is that the firms that win at this work are the ones that treat their own business with the same rigour they would bring to a client engagement. Most don't, because no one is paying them to. The ones that do, change the trajectory.
The work to build a valuable business is unglamorous, slow and entirely within the founder's control. The exit is the moment that work meets the market. Everything before is preparation.
If you want to see how your firm scores against the seven pillars, the Equity Diagnostic takes three minutes. If you would rather have the conversation directly, come and talk to us. Most of the time, the first conversation is the most useful one.