Book overview
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 written specifically for business owners preparing to monetize the largest financial asset of their lives.
The book addresses both the financial mechanics and the human realities of selling a business. Leaving a company you built is not simply a transaction. It is a transition that affects identity, relationships, purpose, and long-term security all at once. Owners who understand this before going to market are better prepared for what happens during and after closing.
Whether you plan to sell your business in one year or ten, the decisions you make now will directly impact value, marketability, negotiating power, and the quality of your eventual exit.
If you have spent years building equity in your business, Done Deal will help you convert it into freedom, opportunity, and an exit without regret.
