Weeks Weekly with Ed Weeks Jr.

New SBA acquisition lending rules take effect October 1, and they put a seller's last fiscal year or two at the center of whether an SBA buyer can get financed. Add a September rate hike and tighter private equity leverage, and deal structure matters more than it did a few months ago. Ed covers three ideas for owners of established companies. Historical performance increasingly decides financeability. Structure matters more when debt is tighter. And your financials and diligence materials need to be ready before a buyer puts a price in front of you. He also talks about the household clock and the company clock, and why the owners with the most options are the ones whose company clock is ahead. General education, not legal, tax, or lending advice. Confirm SBA specifics with your lender. Host: Ed Weeks Jr. Weeks Consulting Group https://edweeksjr.com Sources: - U.S. Small Business Administration, SOP 50 10 8.1, Lender and Development Company Loan Programs with Technical Policy Updates, effective October 1, 2026 (Appendix 15, 7(a) Changes of Ownership): https://www.sba.gov/document/sop-50-10-lender-development-company-loan-programs - SBA Information Notice 5000-882227, Issuance of Technical Updates to SOP 50 10 8.1 (published September 25, 2026): https://www.sba.gov/document/information-notice-5000-882227-issuance-technical-updates-sop-50-10-81 - NAGGL, "SBA Publishes SOP 50 10 8.1 with Technical Policy Updates" (September 25, 2026): https://www.naggl.org/sop-update-sba-publishes-sop-50-10-8-1-with-technical-policy-updates/ - Federal Reserve, FOMC statement (September 16, 2026): https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20260916a.htm - CNBC, "Fed approves interest rate hike, signals one more to come this year" (September 16, 2026): https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/16/fed-rate-decision-september-2026.html - GF Data Q2 2026 M&A and Leverage Reports, via ACG (August 27, 2026): https://www.acg.org/news-trends/news/gf-data-reports-show-steady-middle-market-deal-flow-amid-more-selective - IBBA and M&A Source, Market Pulse Survey Q2 2026 (August 25, 2026): https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-market-pulse-survey-q2-2026-reports-the-latest-trends-in-business-sales-up-to-50m-302858664.html - BNY Wealth, Structuring the Sale, survey of 354 deal advisors conducted by The Harris Poll, via InvestmentNews (September 25, 2026): https://www.investmentnews.com/practice-management/private-business-owners-selling-now-are-often-unprepared-bny-survey-says/268367

Owners get burned when introductions go out before four answers are on paper: 1. Who owns the relationship after the intro? 2. What is each party responsible for? 3. How is everyone compensated if something real happens? 4. What happens if progress stops? Good intent is not commercial infrastructure. When social agreements get treated like process, three things tend to follow: - money shows up and memory gets creative; - nothing shows up and reputation was already spent; - or the path stalls and the owner is parked with no written way back to a decision. Operating standards from this episode: - Write the economics before the introductions. - Agree the floor before shared work or shared lists. - Protect the return path before a soft handoff. Owners do not need more introductions. They need introductions that can still produce a decision if the first path fails. Host: Ed Weeks Jr. Weeks Consulting Group https://edweeksjr.com

A business owner is deciding whether to sell his company or keep growing it. But what if those aren't the only two choices? In this episode of Weeks Weekly, Ed Weeks looks at the decision that should come before the transaction. An owner might sell. But they might also bring in capital, recapitalize, acquire a competitor, build a management team, take some liquidity off the table—or simply keep the damn company. The real question isn't "Should I sell?" It's: What am I actually trying to accomplish, and which choices do I need to preserve to get there? Ed also explores why financial reporting, owner dependency, access to capital and management depth aren't merely "exit readiness" issues. They determine how many good choices an owner has while they still own the business. Plus, why the experience gap matters when a transaction finally does happen: Most owners will do one major transaction in their lifetime. Everyone else at the table does this for a living. Weeks Consulting Group works with established business owners navigating growth, acquisitions, capital, succession and M&A. Better decisions for business owners.

Your best year in business might also be your most dangerous. Revenue is up. Sales are strong. The backlog is full. You're hiring, buying equipment and taking on bigger customers. So why is there less cash in the bank? In this episode of Weeks Weekly with Ed Weeks Jr., Ed breaks down one of the most misunderstood problems in a growing business - growth consumes cash before it produces cash. Using the example of a $5 million business growing toward $6 million, Ed explains how payroll, equipment, materials, receivables and customer payment terms can create a working-capital squeeze even while the income statement looks great. You'll hear why owners should pay attention to: • The cash conversion cycle • Working-capital requirements • Receivables and payment terms • Customer concentration • Margin quality • Owner dependency • The difference between growing revenue and growing business value Because the real question isn't simply whether your company is getting bigger. Is it becoming a better business — and is it creating more options for you as the owner? Ed also explains why these issues matter long before you're thinking about selling. Lenders, investors, partners and eventual buyers all evaluate the quality of growth differently than an owner looking at top-line revenue. Weeks Weekly with Ed Weeks Jr. is for owners of established $2M–$20M+ businesses navigating growth, capital, acquisitions, succession and M&A. Most owners do one major deal. The other side does it for a living. Not sure what your next move should be? Take the Business Optionality Assessment: edweeksjr.com/assessment Weeks Consulting Group: edweeksjr.com Weeks Weekly: weeksweekly.substack.com Build a more valuable company. Create more options.  

Thinking about what's next for your business? See what it's worth to a buyer with the free Exit Readiness Scorecard: edweeksjr.com/scorecard Most founders selling a $2M to $20M business think the headline number on the page is the win. It isn't. The real money lives in the parts that come later: the earnout, the rolled equity, the so-called second bite. And later only pays if the business keeps performing after you've stopped running it the way only you knew how. This week, Ed breaks down "the vacation tell," the pattern one acquirer noticed after buying up ten small companies and keeping the old owners on. About a year after each deal closed, those owners started taking the vacations they'd sworn for fifteen years they could never take. They weren't slacking. They'd exhaled. The weight was somebody else's now. As the buyer put it: they were cooked without telling me they were cooked. Ed connects that to the brutal math nobody puts in front of you at closing. SRS Acquiom found that of all the earnout money that could have been paid out across a pile of recent deals, only about 21 percent actually was. One dentist hit 97 percent of her revenue targets and collected 60 percent of her earnout. Miss the line by a hair and the box stays shut, in a business you no longer control. The trap is the cruel part: the exact engine that makes the back half of your deal pay at full power is the exact thing closing is designed to switch off. This episode is about seeing that clearly before you sign, and being honest about which version of the deal you're really walking into. Inside this episode: Why the relief you feel at closing is a leading indicator your number is about to shrink The 21-cents-on-the-dollar reality of earnouts most advisors won't say to your face Why "sell, stay, and ride it out" is the riskiest plan, not the safest What founders actually want when they stop chasing top dollar The only homework that matters this week if you're 54 to 58 and quietly thinking about it Legacy lasts longer than the wire transfer. Read the structure, not the headline. This isn't legal or financial advice. Use your own counsel. Every deal is its own animal. Ed Weeks Jr. is a buy-side M&A advisor and the principal of Weeks Consulting Group. Book an introductory call: https://calendly.com/ed-edweeksjr/introductory-call