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The Unwritten Rules Of The Sale
Paperback
Business GeneralInvesting & FinanceManagement
Publisher: Clifford Woods
Published: Jul 11 2026
Pages: 102
Weight: 0.28
Height: 0.24 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
Eighty percent of businesses listed for sale never close. The reason is almost always the same: the business runs through the owner.
The Unwritten Rules of the Sale is a book of truths - the things a buyer already knows and most sellers learn too late, across the table, with the offer already discounted.
It is not a how-to. There is no framework to memorize, no system to buy. Just the rules of the game as the other side plays it - stated plainly, one to a page, in the language of the deal table.
You'll learn why a buyer discounts your multiple before the first add-back is ever discussed. Why owner dependency changes the structure of the deal, not just the price. Why clean books and a good team are not what you think they are. What earnouts, seller notes, and escrow are really pricing. And why the three years before you go to market decide more than the negotiation ever will.
The rules cover what buyers actually price, the four dependencies that quietly set your multiple, the numbers that move a valuation, the deal table, the three-year window, the seller's mind, the exit team, what you truly take home, growth without a ceiling, and the first meeting.
Short. Blunt. Built to be read in an afternoon and kept on the desk - by owners three to five years from an exit, and by the advisors who sit beside them.
If you stepped away from your business for sixty days, what would break first?
Answer that honestly, and you've found the thing a buyer will find.
Clifford Woods is an Exit Ready Strategist and the founder of Exit Ready Strategy. He works with CEOs of $5M-$50M companies to build owner-independent businesses that sell at a premium.
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