Realistic Exit Expectations: Mike Oleksak's Valuation Wisdom

The Exit - Presented By Flippa

Technology

5 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Want a quick estimate of how much your business is worth? With our free valuation calculator, answer a few questions about your business and you’ll get an immediate estimate of the value of your business. You might be surprised by how much you can get for it: https://flippa.com/exit -- In this episode of The Exit: Mike Oleksak, Executive Director at Exit Planning Exchange, shares insights from his extensive experience helping business owners prepare for successful exits. After starting his career in finance and management consulting, Mike co-founded the first chapter of Exit Planning Exchange in 2007, creating a network that now spans 22 chapters nationwide. He discusses the importance of bringing together diverse advisors—from accountants and attorneys to consultants and financial planners—to help business owners navigate the complex exit process. Mike emphasizes starting exit planning 3-5 years in advance to properly prepare financials, address management succession, and establish realistic valuation expectations. Mike also examines current market trends, including the increased involvement of private equity firms in acquiring middle-market businesses and how market conditions like interest rates affect timing and valuation. For more details and insights from his entrepreneurial journey, listen to the latest episode of The Exit. -- Mike Oleksak’s experience covers finance, consulting and sales, with Bank of Boston, Thomson Financial, Trek Consulting, and State Street. He co-founded the Exit Planning Exchange (XPX) an organization with 20 chapters across the U.S. XPX is a business association for advisors to privately held businesses on growth and exit strategy. Mike was a co-founder of and worked 10 years at Trek Consulting where, as both a management consultant and a coach, he worked with clients to grow their businesses, tell their story better to raise financing, attract investment and acquirers. Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeoleksak/ Mike on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeoleksak/ Free Range Thinking Website: https://www.freerangethinking.com/ -- The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, and welcome to The Exit, presented by FlipUp, the number one platform to buy and sell online businesses.
0:06.2	Flipit manages over a billion in deal value annually and combines expert buy and sell side advisory with its market leading valuation tool,
0:14.2	deal room, off market offering, market insights, an AI-based deal-by-deal matching engine.
0:20.6	Now for the exit. The Ex exit is a 30-minute podcast
0:23.2	featuring awesome entrepreneurs who have been there and they have done it. The exit talks to
0:27.6	operators who have bought and sold businesses of all different sizes. You learn how they did it,
0:32.5	why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits. It's a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many.
0:39.6	On this episode of the exit, I sit down with Mike Olexak.
0:42.9	He is the executive director at exit planning exchange.
0:47.0	Now, this is a really cool network of advisors who help businesses and their owners
0:52.1	go through the planning process of exiting. And not only is
0:57.4	he part of the Boston chapter that he started, but there are chapters all over the country.
1:04.0	And I think this is a really fantastic business because it is basically moving knowledge all over
1:09.5	the country as exits are happening with different people
1:12.6	all throughout the country.
1:14.8	And my favorite part of this conversation is really when we're talking about the boomer
1:20.3	generation retiring and trying to pass businesses on to their kids.
1:24.9	I think that there's so much planning that goes around that a lot of people
1:27.9	discount. They don't really think about the trajectory of a business and if the child that they have,
1:35.2	that they're passing this on to, is ready. Or if they want their child to have it immediately right
1:39.5	after college, for example, they want to just say, hey, delay this a few years, let me know if it's right for you,
1:45.4	and we can see if we're going to sell it or if it's going to go to you. And I think there's so
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Exit - Presented By Flippa, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Exit - Presented By Flippa and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.