Done Deal: Exit Without Regret. How to Prepare, Promote, and Protect the Sale of Your Business

DONE DEAL Exit Without Regret: How to Prepare, Promote, and Protect the Sale of Your Business Most business owners spend decades building a business and less than a year preparing to sell it. That imbalance can cost them everything they worked for. Deals collapse during due diligence. Buyers renegotiate at the last minute. Taxes consume more proceeds than expected. Owners discover too late that the market does not value their business the way they assumed it would. Many leave substantial money on the table simply because they did not understand how sophisticated buyers evaluate risk, structure transactions, and negotiate leverage. Done Deal was written to change that. Drawing on more than thirty years advising privately held companies and over 2,400 completed transactions, Ed Mysogland delivers a practical, experience-driven guide to selling a business successfully while protecting the value, leverage, and legacy owners have spent years building. This is not theory from the sidelines. It is a real-world playbook built from decades inside negotiations, failed deals, financing challenges, buyer meetings, due diligence disputes, and successful closings across the lower middle market. Inside, business owners will learn: How buyers actually determine business value The difference between appraised value and market value What increases purchase price and improves deal terms Why some businesses attract multiple buyers while others struggle to sell How to prepare for due diligence before it becomes a problem What sophisticated buyers look for during negotiations How deal structure affects taxes, risk, and after-tax proceeds Why the period between letter of intent and closing is often the most dangerous stage of a transaction How to protect confidentiality, employees, customers, and negotiating leverage during a sale The emotional realities owners face before and after an exit Unlike many books about mergers and acquisitions written from the buyer's perspective, Done Deal is