Coastal Consultants

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Coastal Consultants Business Sales, Valuations and Advisory Services/Real Estate with Marcellus Real Estate LLC

Coastal Consultants is a lower middle market M&A advisory serving business owners across the MidSouth — Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas. We work with founders of companies doing $2M–$40M in revenue who are thinking about transition now, or within the next few years. Most owners will sell their business exactly once, and good decisions require good information. We start with valuation — a clear, defensible picture of what your business is worth today — then guide you through our Preparation to Payday process so you can exit on a planned timeline rather than a crisis one. Led by a Master Certified Business Intermediary (MCBI), one of fewer than 100 nationwide.

If the company only runs because you are there every day, a buyer is not looking at a business. They are looking at a jo...
22/10/2026

If the company only runs because you are there every day, a buyer is not looking at a business. They are looking at a job with you attached to it.

That is the hardest of the three questions every buyer asks, so let's take them in order.

Does this business make money? Consistent profit answers it. Has it done so consistently? Clean books prove it. A lender reads your financials the same way the buyer does, and a set of records that reconciles without a story attached takes a whole layer of doubt off the table.

Does it keep making money after the keys change hands? This is where having management staff in place earns its keep. If your people, your processes, and your systems keep it running while you are on vacation, a buyer is looking at something that keeps going after closing. That is the difference between a business that sells and one that sits. Buyers and lenders both ask this one, and they ask it more than once.

Growth is the bonus on top. A buyer who can see room to add a product, a market, or some efficiency sees their own future in your company. And all of it lands better when it is out in the open: organized financials, current contracts, written procedures. Transparency is what makes due diligence a walkthrough instead of a grind. It also shortens it.

Here is the part I like best. Building a management team, getting the books clean, and turning loyal customers into contracted ones all take planning. None of it happens the month you decide to sell. But every one of those improvements makes the business better to own while you still own it.

If you want to know how your business answers those three questions today, book a confidential call and we'll walk through it: link.coastalconsult.org/widget/booking/Yvq26iFNxKZQfbWydX7g

The bigger company in your space wants to roll you in. Here is what that is, and what it is not.A hot industry does brin...
20/10/2026

The bigger company in your space wants to roll you in. Here is what that is, and what it is not.

A hot industry does bring one thing worth having. The larger player in your market may decide it would rather buy you than compete with you, and that is real. It is worth taking seriously. But let's be clear about what it is. It is an opportunity for an exit you might not normally have. It is not an inflated purchase price because your industry happens to be in demand.

A strategic buyer still values you on what your business earns and what it would take to run it without you. They may see something extra in your customer list, your territory, or your crew, and they may pay for that. But they are pricing it against the earnings, the same way every other buyer does, and their lender is reading the same numbers. A strategic reason to buy you does not turn into a strategic reason to overpay.

Demand opens the door. Your numbers set the price.

So when that call comes, two things matter. The first is whether you have the profit and the team in place to be worth rolling in at a number you would be glad to take. The second is whether you have someone in the room with you who has sat across from that kind of buyer before. A strategic buyer arrives with a strategic reason to want you, and that is exactly the moment you do not want to negotiate alone.

If you are the right size and you happen to be in a hot industry, for sure get representation. Good representation is what keeps you from leaving a single dollar on the table at closing.

Have a private question about a buyer who has already reached out? Message me anytime. Always discreet.

16/10/2026

Most owners find this out the week they decide to sell. The lender asks for the last three years of tax returns, and nothing older.
That is not the lender being unfair. Goodwill is priced on what the business produces right now, not on how long the sign has been up. Your first 25 years built the customers and the crew that show up in today’s earnings. They do not get added on top.
Thirty years in business does not raise a value that is determined by the last five. If you want to know where yours stands, the full article is on the blog this week, and a confidential call is here: link.coastalconsult.org/widget/booking/Yvq26iFNxKZQfbWydX7g

The full breakdown, what goodwill actually is and what builds it, is on YouTube: https://youtu.be/x-gXNLETIws

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The last twelve months of your financials get read harder than the first twenty years of your business.That surprises ow...
15/10/2026

The last twelve months of your financials get read harder than the first twenty years of your business.

That surprises owners, and it explains almost everything about how goodwill gets priced. Buyers and their lenders want to know what the business produces now. So the work that moves goodwill is work on the business as it stands today, and it has to start before you go to market, not at the closing table.

Give yourself 12 to 24 months and work on three things.

First, reduce the dependence on you. Name a second in command. Write the systems down. Put the key customer and vendor relationships in other hands, so a buyer can see the business running without you in the building.

Second, keep the people. Retention agreements, or plain recognition, for the employees a buyer is going to want to inherit. A crew that stays is goodwill a buyer can count. Buyers ask who has been there longest and who is likely to leave the week the sign changes, and they price the answer.

Third, clean and steady the financials. Consistent earnings are the proof behind every other claim you make about the business. Three clean years read better than thirty uneven ones. If the books tell one story to the bank and another to the CPA, that gets sorted now, not in due diligence.

One more thing, because it catches people. When the sale happens, the purchase price gets allocated between the tangible assets, goodwill, and the other identifiable intangibles. That allocation is a tax event for both sides, so it gets settled with your CPA at the table, not after the fact.

None of this is a reason to panic. It is a reason to start while you have time to do it well. If you want to know where your goodwill stands today, and what would move it, book a confidential call:
link.coastalconsult.org/widget/booking/Yvq26iFNxKZQfbWydX7g

Thirty years in business does not raise a value that is determined by the last five. Goodwill is real, and it is often t...
15/10/2026

Thirty years in business does not raise a value that is determined by the last five. Goodwill is real, and it is often the biggest piece of what a buyer pays, but it is not a reward for longevity and it is not a reputation medal. Here is what actually counts, and what moves it.
Read more: https://www.coastalconsult.org/goodwill-selling-business-mississippi/

Two shops. Same trucks, same inventory, same building. One sells for a good deal more than the other, and the difference...
13/10/2026

Two shops. Same trucks, same inventory, same building. One sells for a good deal more than the other, and the difference has a name.

Line the equipment up and the appraisals match. Now look closer. The first shop has customers who reorder without being asked, a crew that has been there six years, and three straight years of steady earnings. The second has sales sliding and a new face at the counter every quarter. A buyer pays more for the first shop, and every dollar of that gap is goodwill.

So goodwill is what your business is worth beyond its physical assets: the loyal customers, the recurring revenue, the trained people, the vendor relationships, the systems that run whether or not you are in the building, and the track record of earnings. It is the reason a business is worth more than a pile of its parts.
It is also the reason the balance sheet almost never tells you what the company is worth. Book value counts what you own. A buyer pays for what the business does.

Here is where owners get misled. They read that gap as a reward for the years they put in, and it isn't. Buyers and their lenders price a business on its recent numbers, not on the year the sign went up. A 30-year-old company with flat or falling earnings gets priced like a company with flat or falling earnings. That's it.

The flip side is encouraging. A young company with three clean, climbing years can carry more goodwill than an old one that has coasted. The market pays for momentum it can verify.

If you have been counting the years and wondering what they are worth, the honest answer is in the last few of them. Questions about how that reads on your business? Send me a message. Always confidential.

09/10/2026

The hardest conversation two partners ever have is the one they skipped while things were good.
Two partners build a company together for twenty years. They trust each other completely, and they have earned it.
Then one of them is ready to sell, and the other is not. That is the moment they find out nothing on paper says what happens next.
Trust and paperwork are not competing. Trust tells you this is someone worth building with. Paper tells you what happens when the two of you want different things, and over enough years, you will.
The easiest time to agree on the exit is while you still like each other.
Read the article: https://www.coastalconsult.org/trust-but-verify-then-write-it-down/ The full breakdown, five questions your agreement has to answer, is on YouTube: https://youtu.be/WG4udCswTeE

Trust and paperwork are not competing with each other. They're answering two different questions. Trust tells you this i...
08/10/2026

Trust and paperwork are not competing with each other. They're answering two different questions. Trust tells you this is someone worth going into business with. Paper tells you what happens when the two of you see something differently, and you will, because nobody has ever partnered with someone for years without hitting at least one moment where they wanted different things. Agree on that now, while you like each other. Write it down. Trust but verify. Read more here: https://www.coastalconsult.org/trust-but-verify-then-write-it-down/

05/10/2026

Every owner has a Kristin. The person who actually runs the place.
Kristin is the power behind the throne and a joint owner within a group of businesses here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and she expected the sale of one of them to be long and drawn out. It turned out simpler, faster, and more straightforward than she planned for.
What she was dreading, we handled: the back and forth with the buyer and the contract negotiations, on both sides.
If you are the Owner, bookkeeper, or right hand of an owner who is thinking about selling, you are welcome to reach out too. You know where the bodies are buried, and that knowledge makes a transaction smoother. Send me a message and let's set up a call.

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