What indie owners need to know about preparing for sale, what buyers actually want, and what the right buyer brings to the table beyond the check.
The market just moved decisively under indie agencies — and most owners haven't fully caught up.
Deal value is up 43%, driven by mega-deals at the top of the market. Deal volume is essentially flat: not more deals happening, just bigger ones trading at higher prices. Private equity now sits behind 80% of marketing-services transactions.
This Blueprint distills a half-day session co-produced with Davis+Gilbert LLP and Evalla Advisors into plain-language frameworks, working multiples, and practical on-ramps: Lori Murphree's state of the M&A market, three working-session deep dives, a cross-session synthesis, a practical next-steps closer, and a companion toolkit.
Deal value, year over year — driven by mega-deals at the top.
Deal volume — bigger deals, not more of them.
Of marketing-services transactions now have private equity behind them.
The full report: Lori Murphree's State of M&A read, three session deep dives, the cross-session synthesis, practical next steps, and a plain-English glossary.
Run the M&A readiness self-assessment, filter for buyer fit, estimate an indicative multiple, and work through the pre-sale action checklist.
Launch the tools →Lori Murphree's market read: current multiples by sub-sector, deal structures, where the buyers are, and where the market is moving.
Davis+Gilbert, Armanino, and Bernstein on entity structure, GAAP accrual, employee classification, working capital, the four-factor buyer test, and the estate-planning levers most founders miss.
Mod Op, Co:definery, and Davis+Gilbert on positioning versus value proposition, cultural-integration depth, and the cash-versus-accrual surprise that kills deals.
Yes&, Stone-Goff Partners, and IKPN on three buyer types side by side, the "who you become" question, and the character test.
The six recurring themes the room kept returning to, the contradictions worth naming, and the one sentence the whole Blueprint compresses to.
Ten concrete actions every owner can take this month — whether you're contemplating a sale next year or never. The preparation is the prize.
Fifteen plain-language questions across Corporate, Personal, and Strategic Readiness. Score your position in under four minutes.
Five questions about what you actually want post-close. Result: Strategic, Majority PE, Minority Equity, or Acqui-hire — with the playbook for each.
EBITDA, service type, recurring revenue, and AI maturity to an indicative multiple range based on Lori Murphree's working numbers. A heuristic, not a valuation.
The ten things every owner should be doing now, whether you sell or not. Trackable and exportable.
Read the Blueprint, run the readiness reflection, and pick three things to start this week. The agencies that do the prep outperform — exit or no exit.
