Think about your top 20 clients for a moment. How many of them own a business? How many of those business owners actually know what their company is worth? If you're like most advisors, the answer is somewhere between "maybe one or two" and "I have no idea." And that's not a knock on you, it's a blind spot across the entire industry. Business valuation sits squarely outside the typical advisor's wheelhouse, so the conversation simply never happens.
The problem is, that business is often the largest single asset on your client's balance sheet. They're making retirement decisions, estate plans, and partnership agreements around a number they've never actually confirmed. It's like building a financial plan on a foundation nobody's inspected.
Why Business Valuation Matters More Than You Think
Most business owners carry a number in their head. Maybe it came from a conversation at an industry conference. Maybe a buddy told them "you're probably worth three times revenue." Maybe they just picked a number that would make retirement feel comfortable.
That number is almost always wrong. And that gap between what an owner believes and what the market would actually pay has real consequences. It affects exit timing, tax strategy, estate planning, partner buyout terms, even whether a retirement plan is actually viable.
For advisors, this is both a risk and an opportunity. The risk: your client's entire financial plan may rest on an unverified assumption. The opportunity: when you're the one who surfaces this gap and connects them with the right specialist, you've just elevated your role from portfolio manager to indispensable strategic advisor.
The Three Levels of Business Valuation
Not every business owner needs the same depth of analysis. That's an important distinction, and it's one that separates a quality valuation specialist from a one-size-fits-all shop. Through the Virtual Family Office model, advisors can connect clients with specialists who offer three distinct tiers, each designed for a specific situation.
1. Standard Business Valuation
This is a practical, data-driven valuation built for business owners who want clarity without the cost and complexity of a certified report. It's the right fit for exit planning conversations, value growth planning, partnership discussions, pre-sale readiness, and strategic decision-making.
Think of it this way: if your client is a business owner with $500K to $50M+ in revenue and they've never had any kind of formal valuation, this is where you start. It gives them a real number to plan around instead of a guess.
2. Certified Business Valuation
When the stakes are higher—and more formal—a certified valuation becomes necessary. This is a comprehensive, defensible valuation performed by a certified valuation analyst following professional valuation standards.
Your clients need this level of analysis for partner buy-ins and buyouts, divorce proceedings, litigation support, SBA lending, tax reporting, ESOP planning, and formal exit transactions. In these situations, a number isn't enough. They need a report that will hold up under scrutiny.
3. Business Insights Report (Strategic Value Intelligence)
This is where things get really interesting for advisors. A Business Insights Report goes beyond telling an owner what their business is worth. It shows them why it's worth that amount and, more importantly, how to increase it. It's the missing link between valuation and execution.
The report includes deep diagnostics across 8–12 core drivers of transferable value, risk scoring and transferability insights that show how attractive the business would be to a buyer today, scenario modeling for what the business could be worth after derisking and growth, benchmarking against industry peers, and an actionable value-growth roadmap that identifies immediate risks, bottlenecks limiting value, and opportunities for premium-multiple improvement.
For advisors, this report is a goldmine. It opens the door to ongoing planning conversations, tax strategy adjustments, risk mitigation referrals, and estate planning updates…all anchored in hard data about the client's most significant asset.
Why Most Advisors Aren't Having This Conversation
It comes down to two things: expertise and access. Business valuation isn't something most advisors were trained in. It requires specialized credentials (designations like CVA, CEPA, and CVBA exist for a reason) and a deep understanding of how buyers, lenders, and the IRS view business assets. Bringing it up in a client meeting without the ability to deliver feels risky. So the conversation gets avoided entirely.
That's where the Virtual Family Office model changes the equation. Instead of needing to become a valuation expert yourself, you leverage a specialist who already is one. Your role stays exactly where it should be: managing the client relationship, identifying the need, and making the introduction. The specialist handles the rest.
The valuation specialists within the Elite Resource Team's Virtual Family Office aren't just delivering a report and walking away. They can help owners understand what their business is worth, why it's worth that amount, and how to increase its value before they exit. They integrate valuation with wealth gap analysis and exit timing to give owners a roadmap, not just a number.
For the advisor and any accountant partner involved, that creates a long runway of follow-up opportunities. Tax planning around a future sale. Insurance conversations tied to buy-sell agreements. Estate planning updates reflecting a newly confirmed business value. Each of these is a natural next step, and each strengthens the client relationship.
Imagine you're sitting across from a client who owns a manufacturing company doing $8M in revenue. You've managed their personal investments for years. They mention, casually, that they're thinking about retirement in the next five years.
Here's the question that changes everything: "What is your business worth today, and how does that number compare to what you'll need in order to retire on your terms?"
Most owners can't answer that with any confidence. And that's your opening.
Through the VFO model, you introduce them to a valuation specialist. A Zoom call gets scheduled. The specialist discusses the client's needs directly with you (and your accountant partner, if you have one), then delivers the appropriate level of analysis. You can earn a revenue share for the introduction, and more importantly, you've just uncovered planning opportunities that can drive your advisory relationship for years.
The Revenue Opportunity for Advisors
Here's something worth noting: accountants sit on a goldmine of business valuation opportunities they're not tapping.
Every accountant has business-owner clients. They see the financials every year. They know which owners are approaching transition age, which partnerships are getting strained, and which businesses are growing faster than the owner's ability to manage the tax implications. What they typically don't have is a structured way to bring valuation into the conversation, or a specialist they trust to deliver it.
When you partner with an accountant through the VFO model, business valuation becomes a natural bridge. The accountant surfaces the need. You coordinate the specialist. The client gets a level of service neither of you could deliver alone. And both the advisor and the accountant can share in the revenue.
That's the kind of collaboration that turns a transactional referral relationship into a genuine partnership.
The Questions to Start Asking Today
You don't need to become a valuation expert to start this conversation. You just need to ask better questions. Here are a few to work into your next client review with a business owner:
- "When was the last time you had a formal valuation of your business?"
- "If you were to sell tomorrow, what do you think a buyer would pay? And how confident are you in that number?"
- "Do you have a buy-sell agreement, and does it reflect the current value of the business?"
- "If something happened to you next week, would your family know what the business is worth and what to do with it?"
These aren't gotcha questions. They're the kinds of concerns that keep business owners up at night, they just don't expect their financial advisor to be the one asking them.
Stop Planning Around a Guess
The gap between what a business owner thinks their company is worth and what it's actually worth is one of the biggest unaddressed risks in financial planning. Most advisors know this intuitively. The difference between knowing it and doing something about it comes down to having the right specialist in your corner.
That's what the Virtual Family Office model is built for. You don't need to add credentials or hire staff. You need access to a vetted team of specialists who can step in, deliver real value, and make you look like the advisor who thinks of everything.
Business valuation is one of many areas available through the VFO. But it's one of the most impactful places to start, because almost every business-owner client in your book is planning around a number nobody's verified.
