"If you only read one book before entertaining an offer for your company, make it this one." -Jordan Raynor, bestselling author of The Sacredness of Secular Work
You only get to sell your business once. The multiple is the easiest part to get right-and the least important.
One day the phone rings. The offer is bigger than you expected, the timeline is shorter than you'd like, and suddenly everyone around the table-your banker, your broker, your attorney-is speaking one language: the number. Yet research consistently finds that roughly three out of four owners profoundly regret selling within a year of the deal closing. Not because the multiple was wrong, but because the multiple was the only thing they measured.
David Weigelt has sat on both sides of that moment. He turned down a flattering offer from one of the most recognized organizations in America, then said yes a year later to a buyer who checked boxes no spreadsheet could hold. Today, as a Chair with C12 Business Forums, he walks CEOs of $1M-$150M companies through live exit decisions every month.
Beyond the Multiple gives leaders the five dimensions of a decision they'll only make once: three lenses for evaluating any offer-Economic, Team, and Spiritual Value Add, adapted from C12's Tri-Value framework-plus the two preconditions that determine whether those lenses can be used honestly: Partnership Health and Identity Readiness. Readers will learn why the smartest voice in the room is often the most dangerous one, what a term sheet will never reveal about a team and a mission, and how to answer the question every owner eventually faces: Who am I without this business? The book includes the Discernment Toolbox, a field-tested 45-question assessment designed to be worked through with a spouse, a co-founder, or an advisory board.
Written from the candid Christian conviction that a business was never only its owner's to begin with, Beyond the Multiple is for faith-driven founders-and for any owner unwilling to reduce a life's work to a spreadsheet.
"As the CEO who acquired David's company, I can tell you this book doesn't romanticize the deal-it tells the truth about it." -Jeff Huber, former CEO, Home Instead