Thinking Of Selling Your MSP? Five Moves That Could Make It More Valuable

Evergreen’s Craig Fulton says MSP owners need to prepare long before a buyer comes knocking - from building a sales engine that doesn’t depend on the founder to tackling customer concentration.

MSPs thinking about an eventual exit should focus less on the transaction itself and more on building a business that can grow without them, according to Evergreen M&A advisor, Craig Fulton.

U.S.-based holding company Evergreen completed 47 acquisitions in 2025, including 33 MSPs, and is targeting another 30 to 40 MSP deals in 2026.

In the U.K., the firm has made 11 acquisitions, most recently, Sage specialist Datel.

Fulton says the MSP sector has matured to the point it’s now attracting attention from professional investors and acquirers.

“We’re all grown up now, and the adults with the money have shown up,” he tells CRN.

For MSP owners considering a sale, Fulton argues that preparation should begin well before discussions with a potential acquirer.

1. Know your number

The starting point is understanding what the owner needs from an exit.

“Number one, know your number,” says Fulton. “Get to know what your number needs to be. Go meet with a financial advisor.”

Fulton says he had gone through the exercise himself. “It was very eye-opening. I was actually surprised the number doesn’t need to be as big as I thought it needed to be.”

2. Work out what comes next

Preparing financially is only part of the equation. Owners also need to consider what selling a business they may have spent decades building will mean to them personally.

“A lot of people, this business is all they have. It’s their identity,” explains Fulton.

That means deciding whether they want to remain involved after the transaction, move on to another venture or retire.

“What’s life going to be like after? Are you staying on to keep leading the business? Are you going to go do something else? Are you done?”

Fulton says owners should prepare for that decision as carefully as the financial side of an exit.

“You spent a lot of time, probably 20, 25 years of your life, you’ve given up a lot to do that."

3. Build a sales engine that isn’t you

Founders frequently remain responsible for driving sales, even as their businesses grow. But one of the clearest ways MSP owners can make their business more attractive to an acquirer is to demonstrate that growth doesn’t depend entirely on them.

“If you want to maximize the amount of money you’re going to get on a day of sale, you should be able to point to someone and say, ‘That’s all they do, that person.’”

Having a dedicated sales or business development leader bringing in new customers can become an important negotiating asset.

“If there’s a growth engine in the company – a growth leader, a business development sales rep that’s just functioning on bringing in new business – that is very attractive,” says Fulton. “That’s like their ace card.”

But owners shouldn’t wait until they are preparing to sell – Fulton estimates it can take nine to 12 months for a salesperson to become effective.

“The first step isn’t hiring someone,” he says. “The first step is figuring out how you’re going to manage that function of the business. What are the KPIs? What’s the comp plan? What’s the meeting cadence going to look like? Then go hire the person.”

4. Clean up the costs

Years of adding products and services can leave MSPs carrying technology and other costs that are no longer necessary.

“Clean up your costs,” Fulton advises. “I see this all the time, where there are all these tech tools in the business. There are all these expenses that you’ve just been running through there for a long time.”

That’s particularly relevant as vendors broaden their platforms and functionality that once required a separate product becomes available elsewhere in an MSP’s stack.

Fulton recommends quarterly reviews to examine which tools the business is paying for and whether they are still required.

“You’d be surprised,” he says. “You’ll be like, ‘Wait, we don’t need this.’”

5. Deal with the risks a buyer will find anyway

Finally, MSP owners need to look at their business through the eyes of an acquirer. Two areas Fulton highlights are the proportion of recurring revenue and customer concentration.

“The whole reason investors are getting into buying MSPs, investing in MSPs, is because of the recurring revenue that’s there,” he says.

If recurring revenue falls below 50 percent, it can become a significant obstacle to completing a deal. The same applies when too much revenue depends on a single customer.

“If you have one client that makes up more than 20 percent of your revenue, that’s considered high risk,” he says.

However strong the relationship, circumstances outside the MSP’s control can change it – including the customer itself being acquired. Fulton’s advice is to win enough additional business to reduce the proportion of revenue accounted for by the biggest customers.

Build the business before selling it

The key takeaway, according to Fulton, is that MSP owners shouldn’t wait until they want to sell before making their businesses ready for acquisition.

His remarks come as some MSPs are currently considering an earlier-than-expected. Fulton says that when he began sourcing deals around three years ago, retirement age was the more obvious reason for selling.

Now he’s meeting owners in their 40s who have had enough after spending 15 or 20 years navigating successive waves of technology change.

“’I put businesses on the internet. I moved in the cloud. Now AI,’” says Fulton, characterizing their thinking. “’I’m tired.’”

For those owners, he says the question is less about whether somebody wants to buy their MSP, and more about whether they have built a business that is ready to be sold.

This article originally appeared on CRN sister website CRN UK.