Selling Your Business for Maximum Value with Roy Yewah

In this episode of The Founder's Journey to Exit, a podcast by Evergreen M&A, Hannah Huke sits down with Managing Director, Roy Yewah, a seasoned M&A advisor who has worked on transactions across nearly every size and stage of business.

Roy pulls back the curtain on what he’s seen behind the scenes: the most common mistakes founders make when preparing for a sale, the challenges that tend to surface late in a process, and the decisions that separate strong outcomes from disappointing ones. He also shares practical, hard-earned advice for owners who want to maximize value—long before they ever talk to a buyer.

Whether you’re years away from an exit or already getting inbound interest, this conversation offers a grounded, honest look at how to approach a sale with clarity, leverage, and confidence.

Real founders. Real exits. Real lessons from the journey. Brought to you by Evergreen M&A: Advisory for Founders.

Transcript

Hannah Huke  0:02  
Hello, and welcome to The Founders Journey to Exit, a podcast brought to you by Evergreen M&A Advisory for Founders. Today's show is very special because we have an amazing guest joining us today, Managing Director, Roy Yewah, from Evergreen M&A. He has...

Roy Yewah  0:25  
Hi!

Hannah Huke  0:26  
...Hi, Roy!

Roy Yewah  0:27  
Hello. How are you?

Hannah Huke  0:28  
Doing well! Thanks for traveling to Tampa, all the way from Chicago to be here to record today. So Roy is going to be talking about selling your business for maximum value. He has over 10 years of experience across finance, M&A advisory, and investment banking. Thank you so much for joining us. We're looking forward to the conversation today!

Roy Yewah  0:52  
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to share just practical insights on business owners to show how they can actually use and protect and maximize what they've built, right, and sell their, their businesses for maximum value.

Hannah Huke  1:07  
Awesome! So, Roy, first, I would love for you to walk us through your background and...

Roy Yewah  1:14  
Oh boy.

Hannah Huke  1:14  
... yeah, and your adventure and how you ended up advising business owners on their exits.

Roy Yewah  1:21  
Yeah, no problem. So, start off my career after Kalamazoo College for undergrad in commercial banking, so I was doing a lot of auditing for small and medium sized businesses, so looking at their financials and try to determine, you know, whether the lending that we could provide was applicable for them. And then shortly after that, pivoted to more traditional finance work at Ford Motor Company, because I didn't want to be pigeonholed to commercial banking, right? And so at Ford, I was able to learn the ins and out of how finance works in relation to a manufacturing company, and was part of, like, their finance rotational program. And after, you know, multiple years at Ford, I decided to pivot into investment banking. And for, for me, the reason for doing that was I saw there were a lot of transactions occurring between automotive and technology during that time, and really wanted to be in those rooms, part of those conversations, those strategic conversations, and talk to some mentors in the metro Detroit area, and they mentioned that if I wanted to do that, a good path would be to go into investment banking. And so went to business school, went to University of Michigan, Ross School of Business, and pivoted into investment banking from there. Started off my career at Albers and Marcel actually, so doing some turnaround and restructuring work and consulting for companies in financial distress. And was able to, you know, learn about, you know, your cash flows, and understanding a business, right, and their capital structure, and to see whether or not they were in need of, of financial assistance, right, in order to make it through the next three, six, twelve, months. And then I pivoted to Credit Suisse, where I was an investment banking associate there in the Chicago office on their global industrials group, working on transactions in the industrial services, business services space. And so think, value wise, or valuation wise right, anywhere from $1 billion, right, all the way up to $3 billion or the transaction sizes that we worked on. And, you know, for me, at credit Suisse, spent a lot of time on different types of transactions, whether it was IPOs, De-SPACs, private placements, sells out M&A transactions, but ultimately, felt like I was, you know, pretty decent in all of them, but not really a master of any, and wanted to hone in on M&A, right? And so, went to a middle market focused shop called Stout, and did sell side M&A work for them in their business services practice, where I was looking at companies in the commercial, residential services space, engineering and infrastructure space, distribution space, and environmental services space, and then some automotive after market space, or automotive aftermarket companies and helping them think about whether or not it was time for them to sell, and if so, what was their valuation and how, how could they partner with the best strategic growth partner for them, whether it was a private equity firm or a strategic company who was looking to acquire smaller players. And that's kind of what led me into the small business M&A advisory and ultimately Evergreen, where I really wanted to work with founders, right? I come from a family of entrepreneurs. And so for me, wanting to work with founders to help them exit on their terms, right? And so that's kind of why I'm here today and happy to be here.

Hannah Huke  4:52  
That's great, amazing journey. So, you've worked with founders of all size businesses, from billion dollars to small businesses. And I'm sure you know the answer to this question, what challenges do founders face when they're deciding to sell?

Roy Yewah  5:15  
Yeah, that's that's a good question. So I would say throughout my experience, I've seen, some challenges, I've seen in where one, like timing wise, knowing when is the right time to sell, and then valuation, right, knowing how much you're worth, and then lastly, finding the right buyer, right. Many owners wait too long and they mispriced their business because, you know, they don't come to M&A advisors like ourselves, or...

Hannah Huke  5:46  
Mhm, Yep

Roy Yewah  5:47  
 ... you know, they try to price on themselves right, or they choose the wrong buyer, and all that can destroy your value. So I think that what I've learned is that, you know, you have to go through, you have to really think about number one, like, what are you trying to get in the sale of your business, right, and why you're selling? Those are important questions to ask yourselves. And then number two, right now, am I priced where I want to be, or should I wait, you know, three to six more months where I can, you know, build up my revenue and get to a valuation that makes sense for me and my personal ambitions, right? And so I think that those are some of the things I've seen when founders think about selling, right, and some of the challenges that they face.

Hannah Huke  6:36  
Yes, and we see a lot, founders, they either undervalue their business and they don't realize how much it's really worth in the market today, or they have kind of unrealistic expectations about what their business is worth, which can also be a detriment when they do go to market and they see that the market's really not where they're at yet.

Roy Yewah  7:02  
Exactly

Hannah Huke  7:03  
So you've been through the process a lot, and you know, I'd love for you to give just an overview of kind of the sales process, walk us through the sales process.

Roy Yewah  7:15  
Yeah, so I think to start, right, take a step back, even before you're, well when you're thinking about selling and maybe not ready to sell. And I think this is where, you know, Evergreen comes into play, and kind of helps distinguish ourselves, is we can help you, right, get ready for sale, whether that's preparing and cleaning up your financials and trying to reduce any owner dependency, right.

Hannah Huke  7:39  
Yeah.

Roy Yewah  7:40  
And so I think that's like step one, and then positioning your business for sale to identify qualified buyers, right. So whether that's, you know, in our initial discussions, learning as much as we can about your business, right, going through that initial due diligence process and then putting together that investor presentation deck, or, you know, confidential information memorandum, just to tell the best story of your business, right, for any prospective investors. And while we're doing that, we're also, you know, discussing back and forth with the founders to make sure that we are telling the story correctly from our perspective, their perspective, and from a perspective that looks good to prospective buyers, right. And so, from there, you're really identifying those qualified buyers, and if it's a good asset, you're going to have a lot of them, and then negotiating terms and managing the diligence process up until the, it's time to close the deal. And that's kind of, in a nutshell, a high level overview of the...

Hannah Huke  8:42  
three to...

Roy Yewah  8:42  
... Sale Process.

Hannah Huke  8:42  
... three to six months condensed.

Roy Yewah  8:43  
Yeah, exactly.

Hannah Huke  8:46  
We, we make it simple, right? So you don't have to worry about it. So you've, you've been through a lot of deals. Can you talk about some of the common mistakes you've seen owners make? Either, you know, when they're about to go to market, when they're getting ready, or even just when they're in the sales process.

Roy Yewah  9:08  
Yeah, I would say that, a lot of mistakes I've seen over the years have been doing it down to just being unprepared for how much is involved in the sales side process, right. So, you know, that includes, like, messy books or messy financials. And when you're, when a buyer is asking for financial information, right. They want to, they don't want to wait two to three days to receive that information. So it's, it's good to have those cleaned up before you think about entering into the process. And then secondly, talking about owner dependence, right. And so a lot of these small businesses that we, we look at, they're very dependent on the owner, right. And so, the day to day does not operate without the owner. And so that, that at times is tough, because owners, you know, they have, they might have a family, they might have kids, they might have vacation, right. And so it's important to identify those blackout dates where you might not have the owner's full attention, and try to work around that number. Another one is poor timing. So, like I mentioned before, when a lot of companies, when they think about selling, it's selling because, it because they're they're not too, doing too hot, right, and they just want to, you know, get rid of this asset and move on with their lives. But if they were to wait, you know, maybe 12 months forward, the business could be performing better, right, and they probably get more value for that business. And then, another thing would be like weak buyer solution, right. We see some small businesses, they already have buyers in mind when they come to us. But, some of those buyers might not be, you know...

Hannah Huke  10:49  
Funded.

Roy Yewah  10:49  
... funded. Or, like, you know, buyers that could help with their strategic growth plans, right...

Hannah Huke  10:55  
Yep.

Roy Yewah  10:55  
... that are in our network.

Hannah Huke  10:56  
Or even just like a mismatch on culture, which we see all the time.

Roy Yewah  11:00  
That's, that's a big one too, culture, yeah, exactly. And so thinking about all those things, I think those are some of the mistakes I've seen in my time of doing this. But yeah, and also, I feel like another thing I forgot to mention was, a lot of times when you're in this process, owners are excited, right? They're like, Oh, these are the valuation estimates that you're giving us? Looks like I'm going to be living pretty comfortably, right, after the sale. And so, it's a three to six month process, right? And so, in those three six months, sometimes they're, they're slow periods where the owners and the people that you're working with on the client side might be a little unmotivated to continue going through the process as fast as, as efficient as they were in the beginning.

Hannah Huke  11:51  
Yep.

Roy Yewah  11:51  
Right. And so that's one thing where I've seen, right, is if, and people say like, deal kill, or time kills, all deals, right? And so just keeping the foot on, keeping their foot on the gas, and making sure that while you're trying to sell the business, you're also still running the business efficiently.

Hannah Huke  12:10  
Growing the business.

Roy Yewah  12:11  
And growing the business is important throughout this...

Hannah Huke  12:14  
Keeping everybody happy.

Roy Yewah  12:15  
Yeah, is important throughout the sales process.

Hannah Huke  12:18  
 Yeah. That's a great piece of advice, and one that we see all the time. You know, you kind of sign, the founder signs an LOI, and it's, the LOI is just the beginning. That's, you know, that's great that you have an offer and you're, you know, under exclusivity. But now is, now is the time to continue to grow the business, make sure it's performing well, and also keeping that calm throughout because, you know, then you get into diligence and legal, and it's when they really invade all of your...

Roy Yewah  12:54  
Yeah, exactly.

Hannah Huke  12:55  
... all of your stuff.

Roy Yewah  12:55  
So make, so make sure you have all your personal ducks in a row as well.

Hannah Huke  12:58  
Yeah, yeah. So Roy, thank you so much. 

Roy Yewah  13:02  
Of course.

Hannah Huke  13:02  
Do you have any final advice for founders, you know, thinking about an exit in the next...

Roy Yewah  13:08  
Yeah, I mean...

Hannah Huke  13:09  
... couple months to a year?

Roy Yewah  13:10  
... Yeah, I would, I would say, just plan early, right. And, like we mentioned before, just make sure you have everything organized, all your ducks in a row. And we're also happy to help with that, right, in order to be ready for sale, focus on structure and not just price, and work with experienced advisors. Right? There are a lot of advisors out there that have experience, but maybe not the level of connection to prospective buyers as, as some others, right? And so just do your research, do your homework. And if you're curious about value or timing, feel free to reach out to Evergreen... 

Hannah Huke  13:51  
Yep.

Roy Yewah  13:52  
... always here. And so...

Hannah Huke  13:53  
Yep.

Roy Yewah  13:54  
... that's, that's what I would say.

Hannah Huke  13:55  
Yeah, and I really do want to stress that plan early part, we have founders that start working with us, you know, six months to a year out, and it really allows them to get their baseline EBITDA and get their valuation today. And if they have a specific number in mind, we can help them take action and take steps to get to that number or that goal that they'd like, and maybe it's over a period of six months to a year. Also, you know, where they need to strategically hire or maybe do some additional marketing, things like that. We're happy to help at any stage in, and if you're interested in learning more, please visit our website, evergreenforfounders.com and Roy, thank you so much for being here...

Roy Yewah  14:51  
 Thank you for having me!

Hannah Huke  14:52  
... all the way from Chicago and looking forward to future episodes and hearing what you have to say!

Roy Yewah  14:57  
Awesome, thank you for having me!

Hannah Huke  14:59  
Thank you!