Latest / The Buyer & Seller Podcast with Fexingo: Business Brokers, Exits, and Private Sales Explained / How a Landscaping Company Sold for 10x EBITDA with a 30-Day Close
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this landscaping company in suburban Phoenix — thirty crews, mostly residential mowing and maintenance, about four million in revenue. Nothing fancy. Luna: That sounds like a pretty standard service business. What makes it interesting? Lucas: It sold for ten times EBITDA. And it closed in thirty days. Cash deal, no earnout, no seller financing. Luna: Thirty days? That's almost unheard of for a deal that size. Usually you're looking at ninety to a hundred and fifty days minimum. Lucas: Right. And the multiple — ten times is on the high end for any lower middle market deal, especially for a low-tech service business. So I wanted to understand exactly how this seller pulled it off. Luna: Okay, I'm in. Where do we start? Lucas: Let's start with what the seller did before a single buyer ever saw the books. The owner — let's call him Mark — had been running the company for eighteen years. He knew he wanted to sell in about two years, so he started preparing early. Luna: Preparation is everything. What did he actually do? Lucas: First, he cleaned up the financials. Not just getting QuickBooks in order — he eliminated all personal expenses from the P&L, stopped running the truck through the business, stopped paying his son as a consultant who didn't actually consult. That alone probably added two turns to the multiple. Luna: Right, because buyers see that as risk. If the owner is pulling money out in ways that aren't arm's length, they assume EBITDA is overstated. Lucas: Exactly. But Mark went further. He built a one-page operations manual. Not a two-hundred-page binder — one page. It covered the five critical processes: how a crew starts the day, how they handle a customer complaint, how they manage inventory at the shop, how they onboard a new hire, and how they close out a job. Luna: That's smart because a buyer's biggest fear is that the business falls apart the day the owner walks away. A one-page manual shows the key processes are documented and repeatable without him. Lucas: And it's credible. A two-hundred-page binder that nobody reads? That's a red flag. A single page that every crew leader actually uses? That's proof of a system. The buyer can see it, touch it, and believe it. Luna: So he had clean books and a documented operation. What about the actual sale process? Lucas: Mark did two things that most sellers wouldn't. First, he priced the business at a fixed multiple — ten times — and wouldn't budge. He told every potential buyer: 'The price is this, the terms are all cash, and we close in thirty days.' No negotiating room. Luna: That is incredibly aggressive. Most sellers leave room to negotiate. But if he had the right business, maybe it worked. Lucas: It worked because he had the right buyer. A regional private equity firm that specializes in landscaping — they already owned five platforms in similar markets. They knew the industry cold. They didn't need to spend three months doing diligence on a business they understood from day one. Luna: So the quick close was partly a function of the buyer being an expert. But it also helped the seller because it signaled confidence. Lucas: Exactly. A thirty-day close says 'There's nothing to hide.' If the seller says they can close in thirty days, the buyer thinks: they're either naive or they have zero skeletons. And once the buyer checks a few boxes — tax returns, customer concentration, employee turnover — they realize it's the latter. Luna: What about the due diligence? How do you do proper diligence in thirty days? Lucas: You don't do the same depth of diligence you'd do on a hundred million dollar deal. But for a four-million-revenue business, the risk is lower. The PE firm already knew the market. They validated the top three customers — none over fifteen percent of revenue. They checked that employee turnover was below twenty percent. They confirmed the fleet was well-maintained. And they called three former customers. That was it. Luna: So the seller's preparation made the diligence easy. The buyer could verify quickly because the information was clean and organized. Lucas: And that's the key insight. Most sellers think a quick close means a lower price. But in this case, the quick close was a feature that let the seller demand a higher multiple. The buyer paid ten times because they could deploy capital fast, integrate immediately, and get the EBITDA working for them twelve months sooner. Luna: So speed is a premium, not a discount. That's counterintuitive for a lot of owners. Lucas: Completely. But it only works if the business is truly ready. If Mark had tried this with messy books or a one-man operation, it would have blown up. The buyer would have found something in week two and walked. Luna: Were there any downsides for Mark? He didn't have an earnout, so he left money on the table if the business grew fast after the sale. Lucas: He knew that. But he wanted a clean break. He was sixty-two, tired, and ready to move to the coast. He took ten times trailing EBITDA — call it six million dollars — all cash, no strings. For him, certainty and speed were worth more than the upside of an earnout. Luna: And for the buyer? They paid a full multiple but got a business that's already systematized, with a known playbook. If they bolt it onto their existing platform, they can probably squeeze out another two or three turns of cost savings and revenue synergies. Lucas: Right. So it's a win-win when it works. But let's be clear: this is not a strategy for every seller. You need a business that's genuinely clean, an owner who's disciplined enough to prepare years in advance, and a buyer who's an expert in your industry. Luna: It's also a reminder that the best deals often happen when the seller is not desperate. Mark could afford to wait, so he could set aggressive terms. Lucas: That's the ultimate leverage. And look, if you're listening and thinking about your own exit, this kind of story is exactly why we do these episodes. We want you to see what's possible when preparation meets the right buyer. Luna: Yeah, and it's also why we keep the podcast free and ad-free. These conversations are meant to be a resource — not a sales pitch. Lucas: If you've gotten something useful out of them — maybe a tip that saved you time or money — a couple of dollars a month genuinely helps keep this going. You can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's that simple. Luna: Even a small contribution makes a real difference for a show like this. We appreciate it. Lucas: Alright, back to the landscaping deal. One last thing I want to mention: the buyer also insisted on a non-compete that was broader than usual — five years, full metropolitan Phoenix area. Mark agreed because he wasn't going to start another company anyway. Luna: That's common in these platform deals. The buyer doesn't want the seller turning around and competing with a fresh set of crews. Lucas: And Mark's lawyers reviewed it, made sure it was reasonable, and that was that. The whole thing took less than a month from LOI to close. Luna: It's a great example of how selling a business doesn't have to be a painful, drawn-out process. With the right preparation and the right counterparty, it can be surprisingly clean. Lucas: Yeah. And I think the takeaway for any owner is: start preparing before you need to sell. Clean up the books, document the operations, and get clear on what you want — speed, price, or certainty. You can't maximize all three, but you can pick the one that matters most. Luna: And if you pick speed and price, like Mark did, you better have the substance to back it up. Lucas: Exactly. That's the episode. Next time, we'll look at a deal that went the other way — a seller who maximized price but took eighteen months to close. Thanks for listening.