Entrepreneurs looking to sell a business should put themselves in the buyer's shoes more often. Three acquisition advisors on the importance of building a team, the laws of financeability and calculating a substantiated enterprise value. 'You have to remain realistic.'
The SME acquisition market was thriving in 2025, but it often turns out that entrepreneurs looking to sell a business are not always realistic about what to expect. Some entrepreneurs have never dared to delegate and virtually the entire business runs on them. The result: the business is not sales-ready. Or entrepreneurs who see themselves already sitting in the pool of a house on the Costa del Sol, while their business is nowhere near worth what they have in their heads. Three acquisition consultants sit down at the table, look back on an eventful year and discuss what sellers can really expect.
Edward Ooteman(ED-M & Partners), Michel RabelinkRabelink Finance Consultancy) and Maarten-Jeroen den Boer(MB Adviesgroep). Together they have several decades of experience in the acquisition and financial sector and have guided many hundreds of purchase and sale processes. Ooteman focuses mainly on ICT, business services and dentistry, Rabelink serves the northeast of the Netherlands from Raalte with a focus on SMEs and the large business segment, and Den Boer works from Texel primarily in the hospitality and leisure sector. Each with their own clientele, but with the same challenges: entrepreneurs who have waited too long, aimed too high or forgotten to make their businesses independent of themselves.
'The biggest problem? Entrepreneurs who keep everything to themselves,' says Rabelink. 'They work 60 hours a week, but forget to build a team. And then they want to go sell a business.''
We come from a period where transaction prices were a bit higher. How do you guys look at price expectations among entrepreneurs when they sell a business?
Rabelink: "This year we had an entrepreneur that we couldn't work out with beforehand because the differences between the expectation and what the business was actually worth were too big. Rabelink likes to enter the discussion, "Why do you think it's worth that?" but in this case it didn't pan out. 'A situation like that doesn't make you happy. With this example, we returned the assignment and said, 'This is not going to work.'
Den Boer, with a specialty in hospitality and leisure, adds, "You start with the affordability of the location and what has been performed in the past. We don't go along with the idea 'what if tomorrow the sun shines every day or a super profitable formula is found'.
For Rabelink, too, the most important factor is affordability and financeability for the business. If these factors don't match up, it's hard to sell a business. He gives an example. "We saw a business with a financial 'field hockey stick' forecast, but those revenue and profit figures in the forecast have never been realized in the past. The desired amount was set at 5.5 million, but Rabelink valued it at 3.5 million. Not an easy message to proclaim, Rabelink knows. 'You kick someone gently in the shins anyway. But you have to remain realistic.' In this example, an outside person provided a valuation based on the forecast provided by the seller. Rabelink: 'They are presented with a price tag: once they have that amount in their head, you can't get it out. Indeed, in the back of their minds they have already spent it on a property in Spain.'
Ooteman recognizes. "I only start a process at the moment an entrepreneur is realistically in it. Otherwise it becomes like a state lottery and the chances of winning it are not very high either. The statistics and barometers that Brookz provides help a lot to make the selling entrepreneur understand the value of his business.' That's why it's very important to take entrepreneurs through the process properly. 'Where does value come from? Where are the future cash flows? And most importantly, what is affordable and financeable?' said Rabelink.
That attitude also has a downside: the moment you are critical as an adviser and know that expectations are not going to be met, you are sometimes the bitten dog. Rabelink: "But I would rather have an honest and fair advice, than an unrealistic story where you can send yourself some nice invoices afterwards. In such cases, you usually know in advance: left or right, this is not going to work.'
After all, whether or not a buying party can get financing has a disciplining effect. Den Boer: "Put yourself in the buyer's shoes and make that calculation they would have to make to buy your business. If the seller then comes to the conclusion that it can never work out, that amount will automatically go down to a realistic price.'
You read an excerpt from the roundtable interview with three acquisition advisors and can be read in its entirety in the Brookz 500. Wondering what opportunities and threats lie ahead for entrepreneurs in the acquisition market in 2026? Then you can order the 2026 edition at the click of a button.
