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The number your business is listed at and the number it closes at are almost never the same. Here's why, and what to do about it.
The listing price serves a specific job: attract the right buyers and filter the wrong ones. It is not a forecast of closing value. Treat it like one and you will either price too high (no qualified buyers call) or too low (you leave money on the table and never know it).
Brokers who price aggressively to win the listing are everywhere. The pattern is predictable: high asking price, 60 to 120 days of no activity, a series of 'market feedback' price drops, and a final closing number well below where a correctly priced listing would have ended up. The seller is told the market softened. The market did not soften. The price was wrong on day one.
Correct pricing comes from three inputs: trailing twelve months of normalized EBITDA, the right multiple for your industry and size, and recent comparable transactions in your region. None of those are guesses. All of them require work to assemble. Most brokers skip the work.
Then there is the question of deal structure. A $2M cash deal and a $2.4M deal with a $500K earnout are not the same deal. The headline number on BizBuySell hides the structure. The closing wire reveals it.
Before you let any broker put a price on your business, ask three questions: what comparable transactions did you use, what multiple are you applying and why, and what deal structures are you assuming. If the broker cannot answer those without hesitation, the listing price is a guess.
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