We rebrand, redesign and reposition small businesses so they sell for higher multiples. Acquirers pay more for companies that already look acquired — we make sure yours does, with a finished website and brand in your hands in under 60 days.
Goodwill is the single biggest line that moves on a small-business sale. Brand work moves it up.
On a $3M business selling at a 3× multiple, that's a $900K to $1.8M swing — almost always more than the cost of the brand work itself.
Try it on your own numbers below.
Drag the sliders. We model the published 10–20% lift on top of your expected sale price. No email required.
Three things make your business look like a job, not an asset.
The site you'd send a buyer to was built when WordPress themes had drop shadows. A buyer takes one look, prices the rebuild into the offer, and now you're negotiating from a discount you didn't notice.
It's not just the logo. It's the whole visual system — colors, type, deck, social — assembled over a decade by whoever was free that week. A buyer can't transfer brand equity that isn't designed to transfer.
Founders describe the business the way they think about it. Acquirers want to read about the business they're buying — category, differentiation, proof, transferability. Two different documents. We write the second one.
We read your company the way an acquirer's analyst does — site, sales pages, reviews, press, deck, customer touchpoints. You receive a written scorecard of what's helping and what's hurting your multiple.
We rewrite your positioning around the version of your company an acquirer wants to inherit — category, differentiation, audience, proof. Output: messaging architecture, taglines, value-prop hierarchy.
A refreshed identity system designed to outlive the founder. Logo, color, typography, photography direction, and a brand guidelines PDF the acquirer receives on day one.
A new conversion-focused website — fast, indexed, mobile-clean, written to read well to both customers and acquisition analysts doing pre-LOI research.
What you actually receive on the day a buyer asks.
A printed-and-digital book covering logo, color, type, voice, photo direction, and applications. The buyer's team gets it before the wire hits.
Every file format a buyer's team will need on the migration. SVG, PDF, raster, dark, light, single-color, ICO. No "we don't have it" emails.
HEX, RGB, CMYK, Pantone where the spend justifies it. Locked in a token file so engineering and print never drift apart.
Designed, structured, with a one-page financial summary the buyer's analyst can lift directly into their model. Not the Google Doc your broker is currently sending.
Fast, indexed, mobile-clean, written to convert customers and read well to the analyst doing pre-LOI research. Live within 30 days of kickoff.
The 28-point written audit that opens every engagement. Letter grade, signal-by-signal scoring, top fixes ranked by multiple impact.
Stock photography reads as "we couldn't be bothered." We brief and direct a half-day shoot at your facility so the buyer sees the actual asset.
Six assets a buyer evaluates. Hover any of them.
The single page buyers and brokers Google first.
Drop a URL. We run six signals an analyst reviews before LOI. Instant letter grade, top three fixes, no email needed.
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That's the 30-second read. The full 28-point audit goes deeper — written, with owner interview and named fixes ranked by impact.
Book the full auditDifferent industries, same problem — the brand is a discount the buyer notices.
Most home-services operators we meet are profitable, route-dense, twenty years deep — and selling against a website that looks ten years older than the business is. Buyers in this category (private equity rollups, strategic regionals) are running a checklist. They want the new site, the cleaned-up reviews, the named-account-manager photo, the trucks-with-the-new-wrap photo. We deliver that punch list.
It's the single category where the "buyer prices the rebuild into the offer" effect bites hardest, because PE buyers literally model rebrand cost as a line item.
For services firms, brand equity isn't a nice-to-have — it's literally the goodwill being sold. A 40-attorney firm with a generic logo and a 2014 website is asking the acquirer to discount the only thing they're buying. We restage the partnership for the roll-up that's coming and the senior partners who want to retire on a premium.
Roll-up buyers in legal, accounting, and agencies are unusually brand-aware because they've consolidated firms before and know exactly what hurts integration.
Aggregators and strategic e-comm acquirers (Thrasio-style and what's replaced them) buy on a brand-strength multiplier — they're explicit about it. A $2M Shopify business with consistent identity, a real founder voice, and a press page sells for a different number than one without. Same SKUs.
We rebuild the Shopify front end, sharpen the founder one-pager, and make the brand book the buyer can hand to their post-acquisition team.
Manufacturing sells on cash flow and equipment, but the buyer's diligence team still pulls up the website. A Geocities-era site with a "Contact Us" form and grainy photos signals deferred everything. We don't change the production line — we change what the buyer reads while their analyst is doing the EBITDA work.
Strategic buyers in this category are usually adjacent operators who will keep the name. The brand they're buying needs to look like it survives the transition.
Healthcare practice acquisitions are a wave: DSOs, vet roll-ups, dermatology consolidators. They all model practice value off recurring patient revenue, but the brand drives the patient retention number they're modeling. A practice with a strong local brand and a real patient-comms system is worth a multiple-and-change more than a practice without.
HIPAA-aware copy, transferable patient-comms templates, and a brand book the acquirer can roll across other locations.
Hospitality acquisitions almost always have a brand story problem on the seller side — the owner built the place around their personality, and the buyer is asking how that survives a sale. We rewrite the brand so the story lives in the place, not the person.
Typical outcomes: a strategic buyer who wanted to keep operating, paid a premium because the brand transferred without renaming.
Industry outcomes above are composite engagements assembled from real client work, anonymized for confidentiality.
A real human reads your site, your positioning, and the visible buyer-facing assets — then emails you the three things we'd fix first and an estimate of the impact on your multiple. No pitch, no obligation, no spam.
We respond within two business days. Used only to send your audit — never sold, never shared.
US owner-operators selling now, listing soon, or planning a near-term exit.
Not a fit? We'll tell you on the first call and point you to the right shop.
We model your sale price as-is vs. a brand-driven lift, net of a $28K mid-tier engagement. The ROI line is the honest number.
There are four kinds of provider in the pre-sale brand space. Here's where we land.
| Provider | Who they serve | Productized? | Below $5M? | Brand & site? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand2Sell | Owner-operators selling now, soon, or already listed | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| The Grist / Branding for Buyout® | $5M–$150M + PE | No — multi-year retainer | No | Yes |
| Backstory Branding | Growth-stage / mid-market | Custom | Sometimes | Yes |
| Lab Creative | Founders 2–5 years from sale (Canada) | Custom | Yes (Canada) | Yes |
| Atomicdust / MonogramGroup | PE portfolio post-acquisition | No | No | Yes |
| Generic local branding agency | Whoever calls | Sometimes | Yes | Sometimes — no exit framing |
| Business brokers | Sellers, on commission | N/A | Yes | No brand or web |
Direct answers to what owners ask us first.
Engagements are productized at fixed scope and fixed price, generally a fraction of a percent of your expected sale price. See the pricing page for current packages and what's included.
Under 60 days from kickoff to a finished, public website and brand system. Most engagements hit the 6–8 week mark. If you're already listed, the new site goes live mid-engagement so buyers researching you today see the upgraded version within 30 days.
Yes — we coordinate from kickoff. Many engagements are referred by brokers because a polished seller closes faster and at a higher multiple, which is good for everyone on the sell side.
No, and be skeptical of anyone who does. Sale price depends on earnings, growth, multiples, terms, the buyer pool, and dozens of variables we don't control. What we do control: the brand assets a buyer evaluates. Industry research suggests well-executed pre-sale brand work lifts exit value 10–20% — we work to put your business in the upper part of that range.
Yes, but we'll usually push back. A new website with the same dated logo and unclear positioning under-delivers. The combined engagement is priced lower than the components bought separately.
Then we're probably not the right fit. We're built around the buyer's-eye review. If you're not preparing for a sale, hire a general branding agency — they'll cost less and the work will fit your goal better.
We look at your site, your positioning, your sales pages, your visible buyer-facing assets — and we tell you what would help your multiple and what wouldn't.
Book the audit