Every owner approaching a sale is carrying three different numbers: what they need, what they want, and what the firm is worth. Getting clear on all three before going to market is what separates a decision from a negotiation with yourself, and the gap that matters is usually not the one owners expect.
The number you need
This is the one most owners have already worked out with their financial adviser, even if they have never said it out loud. It is what the sale has to produce, on top of savings and retirement accounts, to fund the life they plan to live.
Here is what surprises people: for most architecture, engineering, and surveying owners, the sale is not a rescue. These are professionals who earned well for decades and saved. The proceeds improve the picture rather than create it. Once an owner sees that on paper, the whole conversation gets calmer, because the deal stops being something they have to win.
We are not financial advisers and we do not give investment advice. Working out the need number is a conversation for your own adviser, and it is worth having before you talk to anyone about selling.
The number you want
Everyone wants the biggest number. That is not greed, it is a career's worth of work asking to be measured.
In practice, owners accept a fair value fairly easily once someone explains where it comes from. The resistance is almost never to the number itself. It is to a number nobody has justified. Show an owner how the multiple was derived, what the bank's independent valuation will say, and which parts of the firm drive it, and the want number tends to move toward the worth number on its own.
The number it is worth
This one is not a matter of opinion. Firms in the $1M to $10M in sales range generally trade at 5x to 7x EBITDA, or 2x to 4x SDE for smaller owner-operated shops. On a bank-financed deal, an independent valuation specialist sets the figure the lender will finance against, and that becomes the number the market actually pays.
Our post on how to value your A/E firm for an exit walks the calculation, and what is your engineering firm worth covers the inputs that move it most.
When want and worth are far apart
This is the signal worth acting on. A real gap between what an owner wants and what the firm is worth is not a reason to shop for a better opinion. It is information, and usually it means the firm has value that has not been built yet.
The fixes are known and they take time: reduce how much runs through the owner, develop a second person who can win work, lengthen the backlog, dilute client concentration. Owners who spend two or three years on that list before selling often close the gap entirely.
The mistake is waiting without working on anything. Time by itself does not raise the number, and waiting too long has its own cost, because an owner who slows down usually lets the firm slow down with them.
Start with a real valuation rather than a guess. Our business value resources are the place to begin.