Discover the value of your business in three easy steps

QuickValue Method & the Oaklins Valuation Index

Most owners and CEOs of medium-sized companies are excellent operators of their businesses. They navigate challenges with impressive skill, whether in day-to-day conditions or crisis situations like the COVID pandemic. This focus on business performance is to be applauded as it's what makes companies buzz. At the same time, however, many of these same owners and CEOs do not have a good understanding of how much value they are creating from one year to the next. Knowing the company’s revenue and EBITDA is not enough.

Our chairman, Reed Phillips, has created The QuickValue Method and written a book on the topic with Charles Slack, which is being published by McGraw Hill. Reed’s revolutionary approach to valuation helps owners and executives of midsize companies discover the value of their businesses.

Over the past 30 years, I have advised hundreds of owners and executives of midsize companies (revenues between US$10 million and US$1 billion), and I have been constantly surprised at how few actually know the value of the businesses they have spent years, and even decades, creating. They know what their revenue and profits are. But that’s not enough. Determining the value of a business requires additional steps. Before QuickValue, there were two ways to determine your value: hire a third-party advisor to prepare a valuation, which is expensive and time consuming, or, sell your company. Now I offer a third solution. Reed Phillips, Chairman, Oaklins

Purchase the book from amazon View page

How does it work

With QuickValue you can discover your company’s value in just three steps:

1. Identify and rate the key value drivers for your business to determine your Value Driver Score
2. Compare yourself with similar businesses through a close analysis of market-rate multiples to determine your multiples range, using the Oaklins Valuation Index
3. Bring it all together by combining the Value Driver Score from Step 1 and the multiples from Step 2 to calculate the current value of your company.

Once you complete the valuation, you’ll have a record of your value that can be used in your annual budget or strategic planning process. Importantly, you can repeat the exercise each year and compare the results to measure how much value you are creating in your business. You will be able to authoritatively answer the question, “What is your business worth?” Each subsequent year, you can answer the question, “Did your business increase in value, and if so, by how much?”

Discover the Oaklins Valuation Index

If you are looking for public company valuation information related to your industry, we can provide you with upper and lower medians, as well as the true median, of revenue and EBITDA multiples to refer to. The Oaklins Valuation Index determines the medians using data provided by the financial information service S&P Global Market Intelligence; based on data of the 15 most representative global companies in a particular industry.

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Oaklins Valuation Index View page

What do the experts say

There is only one honest measure of an entrepreneur’s years of sweat, stress and hard work: the value of their company. That has always been devilishly hard to calculate — that is, until now. Reed Phillips’ QuickValue Method not only helps founders determine their company’s value, it enables them to do so every year, without expensive consultants and dubious projections, using their own staff and the real value drivers unique to their company. If you’re a founder, read this book to know with confidence your company’s fair value. Even more, read it to truly understand what you have built. Eric Schurenberg, CEO, Fast Company & Inc.

This landmark book cuts through the confusion, and gives business leaders and entrepreneurs an effective framework for making key decisions that drive the value of their business. Dan McCarthy, President & CEO, Dodge Data & Analytics

Full of useful, practical ideas presented in a hugely readable way, QuickValue is a must-read for owners and executives of midsize companies, to help them focus on what matters in maximizing company value. Royce Yudkoff, Professor of Management Practice, Harvard Business School and Founder, ABRY Partners

What gets measured gets managed, and perhaps no metric is more important or insightful than your company’s valuation. Based on several decades of blended operational and investment banking leadership experience, Reed Phillips has created an easy and effective way for every owner and operator to know their enterprise valuation — and use it as a north star for guiding future business decisions and investments. Mark Leiter, former Chief Strategy Officer, Nielsen

What I like most about QuickValue is that Reed Phillips has created a simple way for owners and CEOs to stay focused on [the value their companies are creating]. Don’t just read this book; use it. Come back to it again and again, and put the insights you generate into action. Mike Perlis, Vice Chairman, Forbes Media LLC