Announcement of Our New Guest Blogger

Harvard’s next Guest Blogger is Jerry Barney, possibly the most successful independent business valuation specialist in the history of entrepreneurship. One of these days you’ll need to put a price on your company and Jerry’s the man to do it.

After more than 3,000 valuations on a global basis, Jerry still answers his own phone and begins educating you right from the start about how he will determine the true value of your business. He’s generous with his time and his expertise so be ready to take notes so you can later review his words of wisdom accurately, to your benefit. I find it’s also a good idea to write your questions down before you call. His web site, www.americanvaluemetrics.com is a good place to start to familiarize yourself with the valuation process when you need to get an appraisal of your company.

In October, 2008, in one cataclysmic financial quake, every company in America – and around the world – lost a major percentage of its value. Small companies as well as big ones. Soon thereafter the whole science of valuing a business changed dramatically. As the credit markets seized up the rules changed, the norms changed, the multipliers changed, and we can expect more changes in regulations as the IRS code changes also.

In order to understand the details of how our companies are and will be valued in a post-10-08 world, I asked Jerry to tackle the subject in a series of posts on the HBS Blog. I’m happy to present this first post of his series and welcome Jerry to the wonderful world of blogging!