Best Exit Advisors features practitioner perspectives drawn from published commentary, working papers, and field observation. Each perspective is selected for its analytical contribution to the question of how owner-operators should evaluate exit advisory, not for the prominence of the practitioner.
"Most lower-middle-market sellers prepare for one buyer model and then pitch to all four. The advisor who maps the actual buyer set before the process begins is the one whose owners do not lose 15 to 20 percent of headline value in the weeks after LOI."
"The preparation gap is the difference between what an advisor does in the 60 days before going to market and what a buyer's diligence team will find in the 60 days after LOI. When those two numbers diverge, the seller pays."
Cordis Institute, Working Paper WP-001,
The Preparation Gap in Early 2026. SSRN Abstract
6515478, DOI 10.2139/ssrn.6515478.
"Sell-side Quality of Earnings is not a cost to be minimized. It is a discipline that pays for itself through documented multiple uplift, with no-QoE lower-middle-market deals averaging 4.2x EBITDA against 5.1x for QoE-backed deals."
Editorial observation, drawing on DueDilio's 2025 lower-middle-market Quality of Earnings analysis.
"The advisor who tells you, in the first meeting, where they expect to lose money in your specific transaction is the advisor worth hiring. The one who only tells you what they expect to win is selling, not advising."
Editorial, Best Exit Advisors. Drawn from interviews with practitioners across the lower-middle-market M&A field.
"Post-LOI compression is structural, not random. PPA escrow, working capital target adjustments, QoE restatements, customer concentration discoveries, and earnout structures that pay below maximum potential at close. The good advisor names these in the first meeting, not at the eleventh hour."
Editorial, Best Exit Advisors. Drawing on SRS Acquiom 2025 Deal Terms Study and adjacent practitioner commentary.
Best Exit Advisors selects perspectives based on analytical contribution, not advertising. Practitioners are not paid to be featured and no firm pays for placement.