Beyond the Multiple
Five Dimensions of an Exit You Won’t Regret
The offer arrives, and the math starts running before the call even ends. The multiple, the after-tax number, what it means for your family, what it means for you. That’s the moment this book was written for — because the number turns out to be the easy part.
For the Christian CEO or business owner who has an offer on the table, or knows one is coming, Beyond the Multiple is a peer-to-peer guide from someone who has lived both sides of the decision. David Weigelt turned down an acquisition offer from the largest player in his industry, then two years later sold his company to a global industry leader in a deal built on shared values and the speed of trust. As a C12 Principal Chair, he has since walked with dozens of owners in the middle of the hardest decision of their working lives — and watched what separates the exits that hold up from the ones that hollow people out.
The book organizes that decision into five dimensions, told through the stories of real owners, real offers, and real exits — including deals that looked like wins on paper and felt like losses in every way that mattered. It closes with the Discernment Toolbox: a field-tested assessment you can bring to a spouse, a co-founder, an advisory board, or a quiet room.
Read straight through - over 15 real stories - in the time it takes to fly from New York to Chicago.
The five dimensions.
- 01
Economic Value Add
The number and its architecture — valuation, deal structure, tax treatment, and what actually lands in your account and your family’s hands.
- 02
Team Value Add
The people you built this with, and what the acquirer’s first ninety days do to their jobs, their loyalty, and the culture you've built.
- 03
Spiritual Value Add
The eternal value of the work you’ve done and the work still to come. Credited to C12’s Tri-Value Model, this is where the deal is measured against your calling.
- 04
Partnership Health
A precondition. If you and your co-owners can’t survive the negotiation, no multiple is high enough to compensate.
- 05
Identity Readiness
A precondition. Who you are when the company is no longer yours.
Questions owners ask.
- Why do 75% of business owners regret selling their company?
- Research from the Exit Planning Institute found that 75% of owners profoundly regret selling within a year of the transaction. The regret rarely traces to price. It traces to everything the number didn't account for — what happened to their people, their partnerships, their sense of purpose, and their identity after the deal closed.
- What are the five dimensions of an exit?
- Economic Value Add (the number and its structure), Team Value Add (what the deal does to your people), Spiritual Value Add (the deal measured against your calling), Partnership Health (whether your ownership team can survive the negotiation), and Identity Readiness (who you are when the company no longer answers that question). The first three come from C12's Tri-Value Model; the last two are preconditions David added from a decade of chairing exits.
- What is the Tri-Value Model?
- A framework from C12 Business Forums that measures a company's impact across three dimensions: Economic Value Add, Team Value Add, and Spiritual Value Add. Beyond the Multiple points those three lenses at a single high-stakes moment — the decision to sell.
- Do I need an offer on the table to read this book?
- No. The owners who navigate exits with the least regret are the ones who did the work years before a buyer called. If an offer is already on your table, start with the chapter that's keeping you up at night.
- What is the Exit Readiness Score?
- A free fifteen-question self-assessment that takes about five minutes and requires no offer on the table. It produces a personal radar across the five dimensions and a candid read on where the work is. Your score is private. How you respond could change your life.
- Is this book only for Christian business owners?
- It's written for the Christian CEO or business owner, and it doesn't hide that. But the five dimensions — and the stories of real owners and real exits — hold up for any founder who suspects the number is the easy part.
Praise for the book
As the CEO who acquired David’s company, I can tell you this book doesn’t romanticize the deal — it tells the truth about it. Beyond the Multiple pushes leaders past valuation and deal structure to ask how an exit can honor their people, their family, their purpose, and their calling. David and I built our acquisition on a simple idea: shared values, shared mission, and the speed of trust. That’s not a marketing line — it’s how the deal happened, and David lived it. This book will help faith-driven owners pursue exits with wisdom, clarity, humility, and eternal perspective.
Exits shouldn’t just be endings of vision, story, culture, or legacy. What if, instead of reducing an inevitable exit to a mere multiple of revenue, we thought in terms of a multiplier of impact, stewardship, possibility, and joy? Gritty and real, Beyond the Multiple invites you to consider how your exit could become a new beginning for both you and your organization, each stepping up and onward into a greater story.
I’m one of the stories in this book. When my partners and I walked away from a market-rate offer and chose our people instead, plenty of smart people thought we’d lost our minds. David tells it straight — what it cost, what it took, and what God has done with it since. If there’s an offer on your table, read this before you sign anything.
Built to Sell taught a generation of owners how to build a company worth buying — through a fable. Beyond the Multiple does something harder and rarer: it walks you through the stories of real owners, real offers, and real exits, including David’s own. If you only read one book before entertaining an offer for your company, make it this one.
Sample chapter
Read the opening chapter.
We’ll send you Chapter 1, The Offer That Changed Everything, right away.
Where to buy.
Preorders open September 1. Available at major retailers this fall.
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