Brand2Sell rebrands, redesigns and repositions small businesses so they sell for higher multiples. Acquirers pay more for companies that already look acquired — we make sure yours does, 12 to 24 months before you put it on the market.
Exit-ready branding is the practice of upgrading your company's brand, website, and positioning before putting the business on the market — so acquirers see a polished, transferable asset rather than a project they'll have to fix. It usually means a brand refresh, a new conversion-focused website, sharpened messaging, and a clean visual system that survives the change of ownership. Done right, it raises perceived goodwill, reduces the buyer's post-acquisition rebrand cost, and lets you justify a higher multiple on the same earnings.
Strategic brand work before a sale can lift exit value by 10–20%, according to widely cited Harvard Business Review reporting referenced across the M&A branding industry. 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.
The website hasn't been touched since 2017. The logo was made in Canva. The sales deck is a Google Doc. Buyers see something they'd have to rebuild — and they price that work into the offer.
On most SMB deals, goodwill is a bigger number than fixed assets. Brand strength, customer perception, and a transferable identity push goodwill up. Weak branding pushes it down — directly, line by line.
Like detailing a car before you list it. Same vehicle, same engine, same VIN — different price because everything a buyer actually sees has been deliberately upgraded. That's the brand2sell engagement.
We work exclusively with US-based owner-operators planning to exit within the next 6 to 36 months. The sweet spot:
We are not a fit if you are private-equity-owned (call Atomicdust or MonogramGroup), if you're above $50M revenue (call DeSantis Breindel), or if you only need a logo refresh without exit framing (any local design studio will do).
A four-phase, fixed-scope engagement that takes 8 to 12 weeks and ships everything a buyer's diligence team will see during the sale.
We read your company the way an acquirer's analyst does — your site, sales pages, reviews, press, deck, and customer touchpoints. We deliver 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 will receive on day one.
A new conversion-focused website — fast, indexed, mobile-clean, and written to read well to both customers and acquisition analysts doing pre-LOI research.
The pre-sale brand space has roughly four kinds of provider. Here's where we fit and where we don't.
| Provider type | Who they serve | Productized? | Below $5M revenue? | Brand and website? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand2Sell | Owner-operators selling in 6–36 months | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| The Grist / Branding for Buyout® | $5M–$150M companies + 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 companies 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 |
Engagements are productized at fixed scope and fixed price, generally in the range of a fraction of a percent of your expected sale price. See the pricing page for the current packages and what's included in each.
8 to 12 weeks from kickoff to delivery for a standard engagement. We recommend starting 12 to 24 months before listing so the new brand has time to be reflected on your website, in press, in reviews, and in customer touchpoints — buyers' diligence teams check all of that.
Yes. We coordinate with your broker, banker, or exit planner 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 you should be skeptical of anyone who does. Sale price depends on earnings, growth, multiples, deal 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 the same 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 actual goal better.
30 minutes. We look at your website, your positioning, your sales pages, and your visible buyer-facing assets, and we tell you what would help your multiple and what wouldn't. No pitch.