PE groups usually double their money in 5 years when they buy from a private business owner.
Why do private business owners give away so much value when they sell?
(Even if they hired a good investment bank)
Because they don’t take the right steps in the months before they hire an investment bank to increase the value of their business.
Running the typical process gets typical results.
Learn how the right process gets the right results:
How are most PE firms able double their money after buying a business?
It’s not that they’re magic, in fact, most are mediocre at best and still able to double their investment after purchasing from founders/owners. The reality is they have hard-won experience buying & selling businesses while most founder-owners and middle-market CEOs have little to none. You’d never approach a big sales opportunity unprepared, but too many business owners fail to prepare and run bad exit processes, leaving millions on the table to reward more experienced buyers.
Our firm was founded to help the people who have poured their blood sweat and tears into the hard work of building valuable business reap more of those rewards themselves rather than giving it away.
This free guide can help every business owner thinking of selling even the odds when going through a sale.
Most business owners will eventually sell their business, and most have never done that before.
In fact, less than a third of businesses are handed down from the founders to the 2nd generation and less than 12% make it to the 3rd generation. While almost all businesses will eventually be sold to another party, few business owners have experience with selling their business.
The challenge is this: Most people make mistakes when doing something for the first time. But making a mistake when selling your business can be very costly. The purpose of this guide is to explain the Growth & Exit Partners approach to even the odds.
Create a better business to sell: unlock hidden value, grow EBITDA, and command a higher multiple.
This short document lays out a practical, owner-first perspective for maximizing the sale price of your business. Spotting untapped growth opportunities, closing operational leaks, and sequence fixes that both raise profit and make buyers pay more — often delivering double-digit valuation lift.
Read real examples, see the exact Ready To Exit™ roadmap we use, and get insight you can act on before you go to market.
Some of the things you’ll learn:
The Ready To Exit™ roadmap — the step-by-step process to “create a better business to sell” and capture more of the upside
How modest EBITDA improvements translate into outsized sale gains (example math showing >20% valuation lift)
Tactical playbook items across marketing, sales, operations and leadership that buyers reward with higher multiples
Case examples where targeted initiatives created substantial incremental exit value — not hypothetical, real results
“I believe that middle market companies are the backbone of America and most have been built on the blood, sweat & tears of their owners. I believe it is a terrible loss when owners give away half the value of their business by selling to a ‘professional buyer’ before unlocking the true value of the business. The mission of Growth & Exit Partners is to even the odds for those who created the underlying value.”
Kevin Murdock
Founder, Growth & Exit Parners
Our founder
Our founder is Kevin Murdock.
Kevin has been working with middle market business owners and their CEOs to accelerate growth and run them through successful exit processes. He has helped clients grow by 10X in a year and helped others sell for 50% more than their investment banker’s valuation estimate at the start of the sales process.
Kevin has a unique background that enables him to develop strategic insights which drive profitable growth & lead to successful exits.
In his career, he has been a professor of Strategy at Stanford Business School where he taught 1/3 of all Stanford MBAs the core Strategic Management course and did research on optimal contract design. He evaluated over 1000 businesses to understand business strategies that deliver outsized performance.
He later joined McKinsey & Company where he led engagements on multi-billion-dollar M&A due diligence, lean operation improvements, strategic marketing, and ultimately was a leader in the North American Health Care practice and the global Business Building and Growth practice.
He left McKinsey to buy a series of companies which he later sold via successful exits before founding Growth & Exit Partners LLC.
Run the Right Exit Process
You've spent years, maybe decades, building something extraordinary. Yet many owners walk away with less than half of what their business is truly worth. Don't let that be your story.
The difference between selling for what your business is worth and giving away half its value often comes down to knowing these 7 critical mistakes before you start your exit process, so you can run a better one.