The ownership transfer
This is the smallest page here and the one with the widest gap between what owners intend and what they have done. Just over half have an exit plan.
This is the smallest page here and the one with the widest gap between what owners intend and what they have done. Just over half have an exit plan. 14 percent have had the business valued by anyone. That single comparison explains more failed sale processes than any figure on the other four pages.
It also explains why so many deals break on price. A seller who has never had the business valued arrives at the table with a number built out of what they need, what a neighbor got, or what the business felt like it was worth in a better year. The buyer arrives with a multiple and a set of comparable sales. Neither side is negotiating in bad faith. They are working from different documents.
Everything below is dated and sourced. Open any figure to see the sentence it came from and the page it was read on.
13 figures · 3 sources · last reviewed 2026-09-10
How ready owners actually are
What percentage of business owners have an exit plan?52%
Owners with exit plan
More than half of owners (52%) say they have an exit plan
Do most owners have a rough idea of what their business is worth?50%
Owners with rough estimate of business value
Half (50%) have a rough estimate of what their business is worth
How many business owners have no idea what their company is worth?35%
Owners with no idea of business value
more than a third (35%) admit they have no idea at all
How many owners have actually paid for a valuation?14%
Owners who completed professional valuation
Only 14% have completed a professional valuation
Despite 52% having exit plan, only 14% took this key step
Is succession planning an issue for family businesses?44%
Succession planning has impacted US family firms in the past year.
Succession planning has impacted 44% of US family firms in the past year
Why owners sell
Why do most owners sell their businesses?45%
Owners planning to sell for retirement
Retirement remained the leading reason owners planned to sell (45%)
Are owners selling to chase new opportunities?29%
Owners planning to sell to pursue new opportunity
followed by pursuing a new opportunity (29%)
How many owners sell because they're burned out?21%
Owners planning to sell due to burnout
burnout (21%)
Are owners selling because of economic concerns?13%
Owners planning to sell due to economic uncertainty
and economic uncertainty (13%)
What sellers say matters most to them
Are most owners just looking for a quick exit?34%
Owners seeking fast, low-stress sale
owners were nearly evenly split between achieving a fast, low-stress sale (34%)
How many sellers prioritize keeping the business and team intact?30%
Owners prioritizing business continuity and employee well-being
ensuring business continuity and employee well-being (30%)
How many owners are primarily focused on getting the highest price?30%
Owners prioritizing maximizing sale price
and maximizing sale price (30%)
Who is selling
How old are the business owners selling their companies?Baby Boomers 59%, GenX 27%, Silent 7%, Millennials 6%, GenZ 1%
Sellers by generation, Q3 2025
Chart-vision read. Boomers are still the majority of sellers, which sits against the BizBuySell broker view that the silver tsunami has not arrived. Both can be true: boomers dominate who IS selling without the total volume rising.
What these numbers cannot tell you
Stated reasons for selling are the least reliable numbers in this archive. Retirement is the socially easy answer and burnout is the hard one, so the 45 percent retiring is probably a little generous and the 21 percent burned out is probably understated. Motive also moves. An owner who intended to retire in three years and then loses a key customer is selling for a different reason by the time the process starts.
There is one genuine tension on this page and it is left standing rather than resolved. Baby Boomers are 59 percent of sellers by generation, while the profile of who is buying has shifted markedly toward people leaving corporate jobs. Those two figures come from different sources measuring different populations, and the archive records that rather than picking a winner. The seller reading is a chart-vision read, which is a weaker class of evidence than a quoted sentence, and it is labelled as such on the figure itself.
What owners find out when they finally do get a valuation is on what businesses sell for, and what happens to the unprepared once a buyer is in diligence is on how deals close.
Sources on this page
- BizBuySell Insight Report
- IBBA / M&A Source Market Pulse
- PwC US Family Business Survey 2025
Reported as published by the sources named. Not investment, legal, tax or valuation advice.