10 brutal truths about selling your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical company.

The good, the bad, and the ugly of selling your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical company to private equity or strategics. None of it is theoretical — these are patterns that show up in nearly every process.

1. Private equity can overlook strong idiosyncratic factors due to macro headwinds.

Your business may be the best operator in your geography with the strongest unit economics in its peer set — and PE may still pass because the macro environment isn't cooperating. Sector sentiment overrides company-specific quality more often than owners expect.

2. Rumors of a 10x exit spread faster than the 7x exit reality.

The deals that clear at headline multiples are the ones that get talked about at industry conferences. The deals that clear at honest, midpoint multiples — which is most of them — don't generate the same noise. Your expectations are being calibrated against survivorship bias.

3. Sellers' valuation expectations are typically inflated 20–40% above market.

Almost universally. The gap between what owners think their business is worth and what the market will actually pay is the single biggest reason deals never get to LOI.

4. 98% of owners are not ready to sell.

"Ready" doesn't mean "willing." It means the business has been positioned, the financials are clean, the management team is in place, and the owner is genuinely prepared to step back from operational control. Most owners haven't done that work when they decide to go to market.

5. The first offer you get will not be the one you sell your company to.

If it is, you ran a bad process or got lucky. A good process produces multiple bids, and the final terms typically look very different than the initial indication.

6. You never know who the buyer will be.

It's not always private equity. Strategics, family offices, search funds, independent sponsors, regional platforms, and occasionally even competitors all show up in residential service processes. The most logical buyer at the start of the process is rarely the one signing at the end.

7. 99% of brokers don't understand what buyers are looking for.

They waste seller time and money preparing materials that don't address the questions buyers actually ask. The diligence requests an institutional buyer sends are categorically different from what most middle-market business brokers anticipate.

8. M&A deals die and come back to life at least 5 times during a sale process.

Diligence findings, financing complications, management defections, market shifts — every process has moments where it feels like the deal is over. Most of those moments are recoverable if both sides actually want the deal to happen.

9. Private equity's interest and risk appetite can change very quickly.

An LP pulling capital, a portfolio company missing its number, a senior partner leaving the firm — none of which has anything to do with your business — can change a buyer's posture in 48 hours. Multiple options at the table is the only insurance against this.

10. Preparation should start 12 to 24 months before you intend to sell.

The work that maximizes the outcome — cleaning up the financials, normalizing add-backs, building management depth, addressing customer concentration, removing personal expenses — takes a year or more to do properly. Owners who start that work 60 days before launching a process leave material value on the table.