Every business has rough edges. Buyers do not expect perfection; they expect to know what they are buying. Here are the five most common discounts, and the honest news about them.
First, the reassurance: none of these makes a business unsellable. They make it cheaper. The difference between the price you want and the price you are offered usually lives in this list, and most items on it can be fixed in six to eighteen months.
Customers who only deal with you. If the relationships live in your head and your phone, a buyer has to assume some of them leave when you slow down. The fix is unglamorous: introduce your best people into your best relationships, early and deliberately, and let them run renewals.
A fifth of revenue or more from one name makes every buyer pause, because one procurement decision outside your control can reprice the whole business. You do not have to fire your biggest customer; you have to grow the others around them.
One person who holds the know-how: the engineer who is the only one who can service the legacy systems, the estimator whose numbers everyone trusts. Buyers ask what happens if that person resigns the week after completion. Document what they know, train a second, and tie them in properly.
Personal costs through the business, unexplained adjustments, revenue recognised in lumps. Every one of these makes a buyer wonder what else they cannot see, and uncertainty is always priced against you. A good bookkeeper and twelve clean months are worth many multiples of what they cost.
Everything up for renewal at once, or no contracts at all. The work may be completely secure in practice, but a buyer cannot pay for your confidence; they can only pay for evidence. Staggered renewals and signed terms turn the same revenue into better revenue.
The pattern across all five: buyers do not punish problems, they punish surprises and unpriceable risk. Name the issue, show the fix underway, and most of the discount comes back.
Tatu partners with the owners of UK service businesses making £500k to £3m a year in profit: money out today, a meaningful stake kept, and a bigger sale built together. See how it works, try the free valuation estimate, or write to nico@tatu-capital.com.