---
title: How to Sell a Founder-Owned Business | Sorrel Advisors
description: "How to sell a founder or family-owned business: steps to sell your business, including options to sell, and the mistakes some founders make."
image: https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/Advisor%20Advising%20Founder%20on%20Selling%20Business.png
---

[Skip to content](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/insights/how-to-sell-a-founder-family-owned-business#main-content)

[![](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Sorrel%20Logo%20Large.png?width=1000&height=500&name=Sorrel%20Logo%20Large.png)Homepage](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com)

- Services
  
    - [M&A Advisory](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/merger-acquisition-advisory)
    - [Exit Planning](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/exit-planning)
- [About](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/about)
- [Insights](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/insights)
- [Contact Us](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/contact)

- Services
  
    - [M&A Advisory](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/merger-acquisition-advisory)
    - [Exit Planning](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/exit-planning)
- [About](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/about)
- [Insights](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/insights)
- [Contact Us](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/contact)

![](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/hs-fs/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/Advisor%20Advising%20Founder%20on%20Selling%20Business.png?width=1536&height=1024&name=Advisor%20Advising%20Founder%20on%20Selling%20Business.png)

# How to Sell a Founder-Owned Business

![Jeff Swenson | Managing Director](https://app.hubspot.com/settings/avatar/2bd668c3e7feb22423c5dba2931fb7a5)

 Jeff Swenson | Managing Director

October 6, 2026

You've spent decades building a business you're proud of, and now you're thinking about your next chapter. It’s a big decision and you’re not sure how to go about it or where to start. You've heard about other business owners' experiences selling their business and have talked to a couple of [*M&A advisors*](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/merger-acquisition-advisory). But you're not exactly sure how the process works. Regardless of where you're starting from, this guide is meant to help you understand the process of selling a founder or family-owned business, including the exact steps, things to consider, common mistakes, and how to know if you're ready to sell.

## Steps to Sell a Business

As a first step, it's a good idea to gain an understanding of the full scope of what goes into this process so you can be prepared. You know that saying "knowledge is power", well it definitely applies here. In our advisory practice, we’ve seen more missed opportunities than we'd like. This is often because an owner waited too long to have an initial discussion about how it works, understood what the options are, and, most importantly, how to prepare their business.

With that in mind, let's go through the process of selling a business.

### Step 1: Prepare for Sale

Preparing to sell your business, or commonly called exit planning, is about "preparing the business, its owner, and its stakeholders for the transition", per the Exit Planning Institute. Proper preparation is an important part of selling a founder-owned business and can be the difference between a successful outcome and a disappointing result. Ideally, this is something that happens many months and sometimes years in advance of a sale. It addresses all aspects of the business and sets you up to maximize value, ensure a smooth transition, and gets you ready for your next chapter personally. We have seen time and again the positive effect that strong exit preparation has on both current operations and results and achieving the best outcomes in an exit transaction.

One thing that is important to remember is that you may not control the timeline when it comes to the sale of your business. Life events, market conditions, and many other factors can influence the need or desire to sell. Early preparation is important so that you're ready no matter when the time comes or the timing is right for you.

Learn more about our [Exit Planning Services](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/exit-planning).

### Step 2: Know What Your Business is Worth

It's important to know that what your business is worth is dependent on a great many factors. Those factors include your industry, the unique attributes of your business, who the buyer is, and what the market is doing at the time.

Of course, one of the most obvious determinations of value is the financial results of the business. The most common metric used in value determination is EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization). When we analyze a company's EBITDA, we go through a process of normalization to determine, as close as possible, the EBITDA that the company produces.

This process involves removing any expenses that are personal or extraordinary in nature. It can also involve adjusting for any unusual variances in revenue that may be out of the ordinary.

Two ways to get an expert’s opinion on what your business is worth.

- **A market opinion of value** is what an M&A advisor produces. It estimates what a buyer would pay for your company today, based on comparable transactions and the appetite of the specific buyers who would bid on a business like yours.
- **A formal business appraisal** is a certified valuation prepared under professional standards by a credentialed appraiser, usually for estate and gift tax filings, buy-sell agreement enforcement, divorce, litigation, or an ESOP trustee who has to document that the trust paid fair value. It has to hold up in front of the IRS or a judge, which is a different job than estimating what a competitive process would produce, and it often lands lower for exactly that reason.

We also recommend running your own sell-side quality of earnings review before you go to market. A QoE is where a qualified accounting firm does a line-by-line check of your reported financial results against your bank statements, contracts and job records. Occasionally things arise that you’ll want to fix before going to market, and it’s better for you to find it than for the buyer to find it. A QofE also provides you and your advisor with strong credibility when negotiating with a buyer as the financial results have been reviewed by a third party.

### Step 3: Know What You Want Out of the Business

This is, for most founders, a once-in-a-lifetime event. Understanding what you want from the event is important. Both to you and to the outcome of the transaction. Some questions to ask yourself:

- What am I going to do with my time?
- Am I willing to completely walk away from the business I built?
- Will I have the financial resources to support my next chapter?

### Step 4: Find the Right Buyer

The right buyer is subjective. Some owners want the highest price; others are more concerned with preserving company culture. Whatever your preference, you’ll want to go into the process with clarity on what’s important to you.

Finding a buyer involves a few steps:

#### Generate a Buyer List

If you have an advisor, they will build a buyer list. If you are working alone, sourcing the buyers is up to you. This part of the business sale process is where an advisor adds a lot of value. Experienced advisors have access to large networks of potential buyers and have the knowledge and experience to put together a strategic list that could provide a strong outcome related to the seller’s goals.

There are several different types of buyers for a founder-owned business:

**Strategic buyers** are companies in or adjacent to your industry. They can often pay the most, because they can strip out duplicate overhead or sell your product through their existing sales channel, so a dollar of your EBITDA is worth more than a dollar to them. The tradeoff is that they are also the buyer most likely to consolidate your operation into theirs after closing.

**Private equity platform buyers** are buying your company as the base they will grow and later resell. Their model depends on growing fast after closing, which is why they scrutinize customer concentration and management depth harder than anyone. They usually want you or your leadership team to stay.

**Private equity add-on buyers** already own a company in your sector and are bolting you onto it. They are often the fastest to close, because the thesis is already written, and the financing is already in place.

**Family offices and independent sponsors** invest their own or raised capital for longer hold periods. They can be a good fit when you care about what the business looks like in ten years, though they typically move slower and are less certain to close.

**Search funds and individual buyers** are people buying a job and an asset. They are more common below $10 million of enterprise value and usually depend on SBA or seller financing, which puts a ceiling on price and adds risk to closing.

#### Create and Submit Marketing Materials to Interested Parties

An advisor will know how to create the marketing material that will best present your business to prospective buyers. The first piece is known as a ‘Teaser’, a one- or two-page blind profile that describes the business. Buyers who are interested sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) and receive the confidential information memorandum, or CIM, a much more detailed explanation of your operations, financials, customers, equipment, backlog and growth opportunities.

#### Review Indications of Interest

Interested buyers submit an indication of interest (IOI), a non-binding letter with a valuation range. From the IOIs, you can decide who to keep talking to. The potential buyers will likely seek additional information as they decide if they will submit an LOI (Letter of Intent).

#### Choose an LOI and Negotiate Terms

The LOI is a more formal document that sets out the purchase price, deal structure, and the exclusivity period. Almost every term in an LOI is non-binding with the exception of the exclusivity clause. When you sign it, you agree to stop talking to other buyers for 30 to 90 days while the buyer conducts their due diligence process.

Terms defined at this stage:

- **The purchase price and what it assumes.** Most middle market deals are quoted cash-free and debt-free, meaning you pay off the existing debt at close and keep any cash remaining.
- **The working capital peg**, the normal level of receivables, inventory and payables you are required to leave in the business. Set too high, it quietly takes a slice of purchase price. Ask how the peg was calculated and over what trailing period.
- **How much is paid at close.** Market Pulse respondents reported sellers receiving 83 to 92 percent of proceeds in cash at closing in Q2 2026, with seller financing in fewer than 10 percent of deals.
- **Any earnout**, where you take less cash at closing in exchange for payments later if the business hits agreed targets. Earnouts appeared in 24 percent of the transactions in SRS Acquiom's 2026 M&A Deal Terms Study, which covered more than 2,300 private-target deals closing from 2020 through 2025.
- **What you are expected to do after close.** Employment agreement, transition period, non-compete scope and length.

Expect 3 to 6 months from launching the process to a signed letter of intent.

##### The Documents in a Business Sale

The documents involved in selling a founder-owned business follow a predictable order, and knowing what each one does keeps you from signing something before you understand it. Having legal counsel or a capable advisor is strongly advised.

- Teaser or blind profile: Binds the buyer to confidentiality before they see your name
- Non-disclosure agreement (NDA): Binds the buyer to confidentiality before they see your name
- Confidential information memorandum (CIM): The full book on your business, used to solicit offers
- Indication of interest (IOI): A non-binding valuation range from an interested buyer
- Letter of intent (LOI): Price, structure, and exclusivity. Non-binding except exclusivity and confidentiality
- Purchase agreement: The binding contract, either an asset purchase agreement or a stock purchase agreement
- Disclosure schedules: Your written exceptions to every promise you make in the purchase agreement
- Disclosure schedules: Your written exceptions to every promise you make in the purchase agreement
- Escrow agreement: Governs the money held back after close and how it gets released
- Employment and non-compete agreements: Your role, pay and restrictions after the sale
- Transition services agreement: Any support you or your team provide the buyer post-close

### Step 5: Due Diligence

Due diligence is the period after the LOI when the buyer verifies everything you told them.

The buyer will send a request list and will hire an accounting firm to perform a quality of earnings review, a line-by-line check of your reported profits against your bank statements, contracts and job records.

#### Common Things a Buyer Looks Into

Here are some examples of the things a potential buyer will look at during due diligence. This list is not exhaustive as the list is dependent on what kind of business you run, what type of sale it is, and more.

- **Financial.** Quality of earnings, add-back support, revenue recognition, monthly close discipline, aged receivables and bad debt still carried on the books, gross margin by job or product line.
- **Customer and supplier concentration.** How much revenue sits with your largest accounts, whether those relationships are under contract, and whether they run through you personally.
- **Work in process and backlog.** For construction and project-based manufacturers, percentage-of-completion accounting, over and under billings, job costing accuracy, estimating logic, and backlog broken out with margin detail rather than just a revenue number.
- **Legal.** Material contracts and their change-of-control provisions, liens, litigation, warranty and defect claims, licensing, corporate records and cap table.
- **Employment.** Wage and hour compliance, worker classification, I-9 files, accrued and unused PTO, union agreements and prevailing wage obligations, key employee retention risk.
- **Environmental and real estate.** A Phase I environmental site assessment on owned or long-occupied property, lease terms, and whether the real estate sits inside the operating company or in a separate entity you own.
- **Insurance and safety.** Experience modification rate, OSHA history, claims history, and coverage adequacy.
- **Bonding.** For contractors, your surety relationship, single and aggregate bonding capacity, and whether that capacity survives a change of ownership.
- **Assets and technology.** Equipment condition and remaining life, deferred maintenance, IT systems, cybersecurity posture, and UCC filing status.
- **Tax.** Sales and use tax nexus, unfiled returns, R&D credits taken or missed, and any exposure that follows the entity in a stock deal.
- **The purchase price adjustment**, the true-up that compares actual working capital at closing against the peg you agreed to. Some form of price adjustment mechanism appears in well over 90 percent of the deals in the SRS Acquiom study, and it settles 60 to 120 days after close.
- **Asset sale versus stock sale.** Buyers generally prefer an asset purchase, because they get a stepped-up tax basis in the assets and leave most historical liabilities behind. Sellers generally prefer a stock sale for the opposite reasons and for capital gains treatment. This is worth modeling with your CPA before the LOI, not after, because the answer can be worth more than the last increment of price you negotiated.

### Step 6: Negotiate the Definitive Agreements and Close

The definitive agreements turn the LOI into a binding contract, and this stage typically runs 30 to 60 days alongside the tail end of diligence. Most of the negotiation is not about price. It is about who carries the risk if something you promised turns out to be wrong.

The core of the purchase agreement is your representations and warranties, a list of factual promises about the business: the financials are accurate, you own what you say you own, there is no undisclosed litigation, you have paid your taxes. Attached to those are the disclosure schedules, where you list every exception. Typically, the buyers’ legal counsel will draft the transaction documents, including the reps and warranties, but you will be responsible for providing accurate information. Anything that you fail to disclose becomes a breach the buyer can claim against.

That claim gets paid out of the money held back at closing. Escrow averaged 12.1 percent of deal value in 2025, with a median of 10 percent, according to SRS Acquiom's 2026 study. Representation and warranty insurance, a policy the buyer or seller buys so that claims go to an insurer instead of to your escrow, appeared on about 46 percent of the deals in that study. RWI costs a premium and takes underwriting time, and in exchange it can shrink your escrow and get more of your money to you at close.

## Common Ways to Sell a Founder-Owned Business

Most owners we talk to are surprised to learn that there are several [*exit options for founder and family-owned businesses*](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/insights/exit-options-for-business-owners). That is why we suggest talking to an M&A advisor well before you feel ready to sell. Knowing what is actually on the table changes the decision you make when the time comes.

Owners usually picture the sale as the thing that happens at retirement, when you hand over the keys and walk away. Some of these options do work that way. Others let you take money off the table and keep running the company. Here are the ones we see most often.

### A Full Sale to a Strategic or Financial Buyer

This is what most people picture when they think about selling a business. You sell 100% of your business to a buyer and transition out over an agreed period.

### A Recapitalization

In recapitalization, you sell a majority stake but keep some equity. This allows you to "cash out" a majority of your business value while continuing to run the business. This is a great option for owners who are not quite ready to retire but recognize an opportunity to make a move now whether that's due to significant opportunity in the market or you would rather transition out slowly.

Occasionally, some deal structures even include a second payout down the road.

### Transferring Ownership to Your Team (ESOP)

This is a strong fit for owners who want to preserve culture and take care of the people that have helped them build the organization. An ESOP transfers ownership of the business to employees through a trust that allows the employees to accumulate ownership as a part of their benefits package.

### Management Buyout

For businesses with a strong management team, a management buyout might be an option to consider. In a management buyout, your leadership team purchases the business. This allows the business to continue to run under a familiar team and is often a smoother transition for customers and employees.

### Family Succession

We talk to many family-owned business owners who want to preserve their legacy by passing the business down to a child or family member. Like a management buyout, the person(s) who is stepping in to replace you needs to have the qualities necessary to run the business successfully. These types of ownership transition generally take place over the course of several years and involve careful tax planning to ensure a beneficial transfer.

### A Strategic Merger

A strategic merger is when your business combines with a complementary business. When synergies exist between two businesses, this can be a very powerful option. Finding the right partner and structuring the deal fairly can be sticking points, but many business owners choose this option to grow their businesses before transitioning out or to support a stronger value in a future exit.

## Common Mistakes When Selling a Business

### Not Preparing the Business for Sale

This is the most expensive mistake on the list and the most common one. Pepperdine's 2026 Private Capital Markets Report found that 64 percent of sellers had no formal exit planning before going to market, and the IBBA Market Pulse Survey has consistently found that most sellers completed less than a year of exit planning or none at all.

The cost is not abstract. Preparation is where you clean up the add-back documentation, close your books on a monthly cadence, get the job costing right, move the real estate out of the operating company, and hand your largest customer relationships to somebody who will remain with the company after the sale. Every one of those items takes 12 to 24 months to make an impact.

### Not Consulting Experts

The deal team is an M&A advisor, a transaction attorney, and a CPA who has worked on transactions. Your general business attorney and your tax preparer are valuable people who are probably not the right people for this, in the same way that a good family doctor is not who you want performing surgery.

The Pepperdine report found that only 26 percent of sellers had consulted an advisor before entering the market. The specific things a deal team catches early are unglamorous: an asset versus stock structure worth more than your last round of price negotiation, a change-of-control clause in your largest contract, a lease that expires eight months after close, a working capital peg calculated on a period that favors the buyer.

### Price Assumptions

You heard a number at a trade association dinner. You may not have heard the whole number. That figure was probably enterprise value, before the debt payoff, the working capital adjustment, the escrow and the taxes. It may have included an earn out that has not been paid and may never be. And it reflects that company's customer mix, management depth, contract position and backlog, not yours.

### Talking to Only One Buyer

An unsolicited call from a competitor or a private equity firm is flattering and taking it without running a process is the quickest way to leave money on the table. In the Q2 2026 Market Pulse Survey, 87 percent of closed deals above $5 million drew at least three offers, and a third drew ten or more. Having multiple buyers at the table is a great way to create leverage and ensure you receive the best price and terms. This is where an M&A advisor provides significant value.

## Should You Hire an Advisor to Help You Sell Your Business

When owners ask why they need an advisor at all, an easy comparison is the sale of your house. Most people hire a real estate agent to sell theirs, not because they could not manage the paperwork themselves, but because they know they will get a better outcome with someone who does it every day. Selling a company works the same way, with more zeros and more ways to get it wrong.

### Benefits of Hiring an Advisor When Selling a Business

#### Time

Selling your business as a founder is a full-time job for six to twelve months, and you already have one. Pepperdine's 2026 report found most sales now running over nine months from engagement to close, and IBBA Market Pulse respondents put lower middle market deals at a median of 11 to 12 months in Q2 2026.

That time has to come from somewhere. The risk is not that you get tired. It is that the business softens while you are trying to do two things at once. Every buyer is watching your monthly numbers right up until closing, and a quarter that misses plan during exclusivity is an invitation to reprice. An advisor takes on the work of creating the buyer list, creating the Teaser and CIM, initial buyer inquiries and management meetings, the diligence request list and the daily follow-ups so you can keep running the company that the buyer is paying for.

#### Expertise

You will sell a business once. The buyer across the table does this several times a year, with a team of people whose only job is buying companies. That asymmetry is the argument.

Practically, expertise shows up as knowing what is negotiable and what is not, what a working capital peg should be calculated on, when a renegotiation item is brought up, it is a real concern and when it is a tactic, which of the forty buyers on your list will actually close, and what the current market is paying for a company like yours in today's market.

#### Cost

Advisor compensation on a sell-side engagement usually has two parts: a retainer or work fee paid during the engagement, and a success fee paid at closing as a percentage of transaction value, occasionally on a sliding scale that increases on incremental value above a threshold.

The best way to evaluate the fee is against the likely increase in the net proceeds to you, not against zero. The relevant comparison is what a competent, competitive process will produce for you versus trying to run your business and manage a complex transaction, net of the fee.

## How to Know What Your Business is Worth

The multiple is often seen as the starting point in valuation. Previous transactions or other market activity is often presented with the multiple of EBITDA. However, the multiple is more a result than a starting point. Historical multiple ranges are certainly useful as a starting point but should not be either an expectation or a limitation.

What moves you within that range is how much risk the buyer takes on when they acquire the company.

#### Sets the band

- **Your industry.** Every industry has a multiple range based on what’s happening in the market.
- **Your financial results.** The bigger the profit, the more buyers will be willing to pay and the more buyers will be interested in your business.
- **Interest rates.** The cost of capital, whether borrowed or invested, will have a significant impact on the return required by a buyer.

#### Where you sit in the range

- **How much depends on you.** If you're the first one customers call, the one who prices the jobs, the one who knows how it all works for a buyer isn't buying a business; they're buying your job. This is the most common reason founder-owned companies sell for less.
- **How predictable the revenue is.** Contracts and repeat customers are worth more than jobs you have to win again each time.
- **Whether one customer dominates.** If one client is 30% of revenue, buyers have additional risk and will take this into account in setting their price.
- **Whether your numbers hold up.** Buyers will audit everything. Any discrepancies or undisclosed information will have an impact on the final price.
- **Whether growth looks repeatable.** One good year from one lucky client doesn't count. Buyers look for repeatable, reliable revenue streams without any concentration with one or two customers.
- **Whether profit turns into cash.** Is the reported profit going into the bank or to cover debt service or capital expenditure.

#### Determines what you actually get

- **Who's buying.** A strategic buyer who can cut costs pays more than an investor who can't.
- **Whether anyone is competing for you.** One buyer approaching you quietly will pay less than several buyers bidding. This is the single biggest thing you control.
- **How you get paid.** "9x" sounds better than "7x" — but if half of it depends on future performance then it might not be better. Whether or not it is will depend on what happens after the sale and your desired outcome.

## How to Know You're Ready to Sell Your Business

Readiness has three parts, and owners usually have one or two of them handled.

### Is the Business Ready?

The test is whether it would survive diligence today. As we covered earlier in the article, getting the business ready to sell takes time, which is why we always recommend starting the process well before you intend to make a move.

### Are you Financially Ready?

Work backward from the life you want rather than forward from a multiple. What do you need after taxes, after debt payoff, after the escrow releases, to fund your next chapter? Run that number with your CPA and financial advisor before you go to market. Owners who skip this step find out at the closing table that the deal they negotiated does not fund the retirement they assumed, and by then it is a very expensive time to discover it.

### Are you Personally Ready?

This is the one that gets skipped and the one that most often causes regret. What are you going to do on the Monday after closing? Who are you when the business is not the answer? An owner who has not thought about it tends to either hold on too long or agree to a transition role they resent six months later.

 

The consequence of skipping preparation is not just a lower price. According to the Exit Planning Institute, only 20 to 30 percent of businesses that go to market actually sell, meaning most owners who try to exit do not complete a transaction at all.

You do not have to have all three parts finished to start the conversation. You have to start the conversation early enough that finishing them is still possible. We work with founder-owners in construction, manufacturing and industrials on exit planning and [*sell-side advisory*](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/merger-acquisition-advisory), and the first conversation costs nothing.

If you want a starting point on your own number, we provide business valuations that give you a credible enterprise value range built from three independent methods, a clear read on which parts of your business are helping or hurting that number, and the current M&A market context. [Contact us](https://sorrel-advisors.com/contact).

 

 

## Share this post

<https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sorrel-advisors.com%2Finsights%2Fhow-to-sell-a-founder-family-owned-business><https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sorrel-advisors.com%2Finsights%2Fhow-to-sell-a-founder-family-owned-business><https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sorrel-advisors.com%2Finsights%2Fhow-to-sell-a-founder-family-owned-business><https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sorrel-advisors.com%2Finsights%2Fhow-to-sell-a-founder-family-owned-business>[mailto:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sorrel-advisors.com%2Finsights%2Fhow-to-sell-a-founder-family-owned-business](mailto:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sorrel-advisors.com%2Finsights%2Fhow-to-sell-a-founder-family-owned-business)

## Keep reading

### [![](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/hs-fs/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/Advisor%20Advising%20Founder%20on%20Selling%20Business.png?width=1536&height=1024&name=Advisor%20Advising%20Founder%20on%20Selling%20Business.png) How to Sell a Founder-Owned Business | Sorrel Advisors](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/insights/archive-how-to-sell-a-founder-family-owned-business)

### [![](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/hs-fs/hubfs/paul-white-pQsNnR-U6zU-unsplash.jpg?width=6048&height=4024&name=paul-white-pQsNnR-U6zU-unsplash.jpg) Exit Planning for Business Owners | Sorrel Advisors](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/insights/exit-planning-for-business-owners)

---

[![](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Sorrel%20Logo%20Large.png?width=1000&height=500&name=Sorrel%20Logo%20Large.png)](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/)

- [M&A Advisory](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/merger-acquisition-advisory)
- [Exit Planning](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/exit-planning)
- [About](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/about)
- [Contact](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/contact)
- [Resources](https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/insights)

📞 720-250-9380

<https://www.linkedin.com/company/sorrel-advisors>

Privacy Policy  |  © 2026. All rights reserved.

```json
{
  "@context" : "https://schema.org",
  "@type" : "BlogPosting",
  "author" : {
    "@type" : "Person",
    "name" : "Jeff Swenson | Managing Director",
    "url" : "https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/insights/author/jeff-swenson-managing-director"
  },
  "dateModified" : "2026-10-06T17:27:40.666Z",
  "datePublished" : "2026-10-06T16:52:53.000Z",
  "headline" : "How to Sell a Founder-Owned Business | Sorrel Advisors",
  "image" : [ "https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/Advisor%20Advising%20Founder%20on%20Selling%20Business.png" ],
  "mainEntityOfPage" : {
    "@id" : "https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/insights/how-to-sell-a-founder-family-owned-business",
    "@type" : "WebPage"
  },
  "publisher" : {
    "@type" : "Organization",
    "logo" : {
      "@type" : "ImageObject",
      "url" : "https://www.sorrel-advisors.com/hubfs/Sorrel%20Logo%20Large.png"
    }
  }
}
```