Sal Urso has personally interviewed over 1,000 business owners, performed over 800 business valuations and sold over 50 companies. In addition, he has over 25 years of experience in managing and operating small businesses. His unique perspective as both a business broker and valuator make him a sought after and well respected professional.
Getting Started
After graduating from the University of Florida as an electrical engineer, Sal began working at the Harris Corporation and Raytheon as a design engineer where he worked for over 8-years. Then in 2005, as a business broker Sal began selling small, closely held businesses, and never looked back. Fascinated by the valuation process, Sal began learning the art.
Becoming a Valuator
The first database Sal began using as a business broker was BizComps. Sal quickly realized he was fascinated by the valuation process and thought being able to do business valuations would create a whole new area of revenue for his business. This led Sal to develop his own valuation spreadsheets, which used Bizcomps and other market data to do valuations from a business broker’s perspective.
Closing the Loop
After being introduced to ValuSource valuation software by Dave Miles, Sal was blown away by how comprehensive it was. Not only from a functionality perspective, but it also solved the problem of getting his calculations into a report he could provide to his clients. He was also impressed with how easily the databases he used integrated with the software. Sal put ValuSource Pro through its paces by running cases through it and then doing all the calculations by hand to check for accuracy. After this, Sal was convinced that ValuSource Pro was the way to go.
Doing More Valuations in Less Time
Sal customized the software, created dashboards, tailored his spreadsheets, added graphs and other features to find ways to solve challenges like normalizing wages in a small family business. Using his custom template with optional content determined by ‘what if’s’, Sal was able to streamline the entire valuation process. Sal was able to do 150-page valuation reports, which normally took him two to three weeks, in just three days. This was a game changer, not only from a profitability perspective but from an efficiency and quality perspective.
Growing with ValuSource
Combining his expertise as a business broker with the ability to do business valuations put Sal in a unique position because he understood and could speak from both perspectives. All he needed was the pedigree to match. Since Sal was an engineer and not a CPA, his only option was to get his CBA accreditation to enhance his credibility and take his service offering to the next level. Using ValuSource Pro Sal completed the grueling peer review process and got his CBA certification.
As a business broker with the very prestigious CBA designation, he quickly became a sought-after expert witness.
New Opportunities for Revenue
To enhance his offering as a business broker, Sal used his business valuation expertise and ValuSource Pro to create customized ‘offering books.’ Instead of putting together a standards-based valuation report, his offering book was focused on the analysis and presentation needed to present to business buyers and sellers. Sal found these reports were helpful to both justify the asking price for the business to buyers as well as bringing sellers down to earth in terms of an asking price that was reasonable.
Great Practice and a Great Lifestyle
Since Sal was able to streamline the valuation process using ValuSource Pro, he can do more valuations in less time, without compromising on quality. Sal’s goal is to offer high quality valuations at a reasonable and fair price and using ValuSource Pro helps him do just that. It’s no wonder that after gaining serious traction amongst attorneys, Sal quickly found himself struggling to keep up with his increasing workload. To help with the workload, he brought his investment banker brother onboard.
Besides his passion for valuation, Sal has a serious passion for Brazilian Jujitsu, where he has earned the purple belt, which took him five years, training 5-days a week.
About ValuSource
For 30 years, ValuSource, the #1 Leader in Valuation Data and Software, with over 90% market share, has provided most of the valuation data used by thousands of valuators worldwide. Both NACVA and ISBA use ValuSource products to train and certify professional valuators. ValuSource Pro, BVM Pro & Express Business Valuation were voted the 2020 winner in the Valuation category of the CPA Practice Advisor’s annual Readers’ Choice Awards.