Experience‑First Valuation

Experience Is Crucial to Purpose‑Built Valuation

Experience is crucial in understanding the purpose of the valuation — whether for sale, financing, succession planning, or another reason. A valuator with prior business owner‑operator experience can tailor the approach to the specific purpose, ensuring an accurate and relevant assessment.

• Accountants may lack the specialized industry knowledge to frame the valuation’s purpose within market dynamics, risking mismatched assumptions.
• Income‑approach‑only analyses can ignore the purpose of the valuation and create apples‑to‑oranges comparisons across businesses with different objectives.
• Business brokers may focus on sale execution vs. purpose‑specific value drivers, which can underweight critical nuances.

Why Private Sale Comparables Are Often Flawed

Sale price data for private companies almost never indicates whether the outcome is fair market value or a forced‑sale price. Without this key context, no private comparison price data should be treated as authoritative.

Disruptive Valuation Methodology

This explains why Eric Jordan’s 25 Factors Affecting Business Valuation methodology — combined with 15+ years of owner‑operator experience — produces a highly accurate, stakeholder‑aligned result.

• The methodology is disruptive within the valuation industry.
• It avoids flawed data sources and outdated one‑size‑fits‑all approaches.

WHY would you accept a valuation from a broker or accountant using flawed data or dated approaches?

Beyond Traditional Post‑2020

Hard Asset, Income, and Market approaches — as applied narrowly — should be augmented in a modern practice that fully measures intangibles and purpose‑specific realities.

Formula‑only outputs can suit the provider’s business plan — but not necessarily yours.

Who Values the Biggest Companies?

Venture capitalists are the practical valuers of many of the world’s largest companies. Think names like Peter Thiel. Neither Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, nor many of the most influential investors are accountants or real estate agents.

The biggest companies don’t rely on accountants or realtors for valuation decisions. Why would you?

Trust your local accountant for accounting — they’re essential to start the process and assemble clean financials. Then use an experience‑first valuation to determine defensible value.

“None of the top 150 valuators in the world are accountants.” The top business valuators in the world are venture capitalists — e.g., Elon Musk, Peter Thiel — and Canadian example Mark D. Wiseman.

Of the ~200,000 professional accountants in Canada, fewer than 1% suggest they perform business valuations.

Contact

Eric Jordan, CPPA - International Valuation Specialist