Welcome back to the Mid Market Insider!

Today, I’m breaking down why growing revenue isn’t always the fastest way to increase your business’s value—and how buyers often focus on hidden risks that owners don’t even realize are affecting their valuation.

If you own a company that’s doing multiple 7 figures a year, chances are you’ve been thinking about your eventual exit.

And if you’re like most founders, then you’ve been brainstorming how you can further boost your revenue to get a big juicy valuation.

But here’s the thing:

After buying nine companies myself, and helping many founders prepare for premium exits, I’ve learned that most owners have no idea what buyers are actually looking for.

You see, it’s not enough to have big impressive revenue figures, or healthy margins.
That’s like getting a car purely because it has impressive horsepower.

Buyers are much more interested in what’s going on under the hood. Is your engine leaking oil? Is there a blown gasket? And so on.

They’re on the alert for hidden clues that could show your business is a risky asset – and if they find any, they’re going to get spooked.

Which means lowering their offer… or walking away entirely. (No wonder that 80% of businesses put on the market don’t sell.)

So that’s the bad news…

But on the flip side, that also means there are easy ways to dramatically INCREASE the value of your business, without adding any extra revenue.

After all, adding more revenue is hard. It usually means new product lines, new customers, or both.

But tweaking your business to fix these hidden deal-killers… that’s much easier.

Especially when you have an expert pointing them out and guiding you.

And if you want to understand what buyers see when they look at your business – before buyers actually do – our team can help you see it through their eyes.

That’s all for today’s newsletter! Thanks for reading!

In next week’s edition, I’ll break down how business owners can use AI to increase the value of their companies—without becoming a tech company or changing what they do.

And why buyers may care less about AI itself and more about what it can do to reduce risk, improve efficiency, and make a business easier to scale.

Keep building,
Nick