A proven system for the most important sale of your life.
Why the DealMap™ works.
Most businesses sell once. There is no practice run.
A repeatable system — refined across 1,000+ sales since 2003 — is what turns a one-shot decision into a controlled process that ends the way you want. The right buyer. Full value. Your legacy intact.
The seven steps of the Sigma DealMap™.
The Sigma DealMap™ is our sell-side process for selling a business. It runs from the first conversation through closing, and every step protects two things: your price and your privacy.
-
Getting to know you
Brokers start with your P&L. We start with you — your story, your goals, what you actually built. We review the business, the assets and your objectives, and set clear expectations for the road ahead.
-
Your Exit Readiness Report
An expert opinion of value using multiple models, and the gaps holding that number down, in one document. We find the genius that sets the multiple. Buyers pay premiums for businesses that are exit ready. They punish the ones that aren't.
-
Packaging and positioning
You get one first impression. We build the story and the materials that put the genius of the business in front of buyers in its true light — and handle the things that scare them before a buyer ever finds them. What you can't prove, you don't get paid for.
-
Confidential exposure
Finding the right buyer takes precision, not a billboard. Our Confidentiality Navigator™ protects your anonymity while we take your business to 25,000+ qualified buyers. Over 100 of them sign an NDA to look.
-
Offers and negotiation
As offers come in we review every tangible and intangible asset, and negotiate every point on your behalf. Top line price is great. Bottom line is what you keep.
-
Due diligence
A signed offer starts the final review. We verify financial and legal documents, work the contingencies, and coordinate with the buyer's lender to keep you protected.
-
Closing
Documents reviewed, signatures secured, payment transferred. A clean close — and for a lot of owners, the start of a long friendship with our team.
What you get that a broker won't give you.
Selling takes a team.
Your attorney protects the structure. Your CPA protects the numbers. Sigma quarterbacks the sale — framing the valuation, running the process, negotiating to close.
We work with your advisors, or introduce you to ones we trust. Nothing falls through the cracks.
Most sales run several months to about a year, depending on size, industry, and how prepared the business is when it goes to market. We move as fast as the deal allows without leaving value behind.
Confidentiality is built into every step. Our Confidentiality Navigator™ shields your identity, we never market with identifying details, and every buyer signs an NDA before seeing anything.
We do. We take your business to a private database of 25,000+ qualified buyers and screen every one for financial strength and fit.
Never. Sigma is sell-side. We work for the owner, on your side of the table, start to finish.
One fee, paid as the work is delivered. Sigma is paid fairly, and only for work actually completed. Rather than a single payment at closing, your fee is paid in stages along the way. What you pay is part of your fee — never on top of it. And there’s no clock on it: work we do for you today still counts toward your fee whether you sell next year or twenty years from now. Your full fee structure is set out in your engagement proposal.
Ready to see what a real process looks like?
Start with a confidential valuation. It arrives as your Exit Readiness Report — step two of the DealMap™.