Is your business worth what you think? For most Canadian owners, it is probably worth less than they hope, and the main reason is the owner. Buyers pay for earnings that continue without the person who built the company. When a business depends on its owner, buyers see risk and price it in. My book puts that discount at 20 to 40 per cent. That range comes from the book and not from a third-party survey, so treat it as a planning guide, not a forecast. The better news is that value can be built on purpose, and the first step takes a week, not a year. That was the message of my 15-minute keynote at the CanadianSME Small Business Summit on Oct. 13. The summit and why this topic belonged there The 2026 Summit took place at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre under the theme "Beyond AI: Building Intelligent, Resilient, and Human-Centred Canadian SMEs." The organizers expected about 3,000 attendees, and the program was packed with sessions on artificial intelligence, payroll, cybersecurity, marketing and customer growth. My keynote, "Is your business worth what you think?", ran from 12:45 to 1 p.m. in Conference Hall, Room 107. It might look out of place on a technology-heavy day, but it fits the theme. A resilient business is one that keeps running when its owner is away, and a human-centred business is one that does not trap its owner. The numbers behind the question I built the keynote on research from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. In its January 2023 report on small business transitions, CFIB found that 76 per cent of small business owners plan to exit their business within the next decade. More than $2 trillion in business assets could change hands in that time. Retirement is the top reason, cited by 75 per cent of owners. A further 22 per cent said they were burned out, and 21 per cent wanted to step back from their responsibilities. Yet only nine per cent of owners had a formal succession plan in place. In other words, most owners expect to leave and very few have written down how. The age of owners adds weight to those numbers. MNP, citing a Statistics Canada report, noted that the average age of Canadian business owners was 53.5 in 2020, with many now approaching or at retirement age. This is secondary reporting of the Statistics Canada data, and it is worth checking the original release before relying on it. One caution: the CFIB survey results were released in January 2023, so they are now almost four years old. They remain the best Canadian data I have found on owner intentions, but I would welcome a newer edition. Three obstacles that are really one problem CFIB also asked owners what stands in the way of succession planning. The most common obstacle, cited by 54 per cent, was finding a suitable buyer or successor. Next, 43 per cent said they were struggling to measure the value of their business. And 39 per cent said the business was too reliant on them for day-to-day operations. It is tempting to treat these as three separate problems. I see them as one. A business that depends heavily on its owner is harder to value, because a buyer cannot tell how much of the earnings belong to the company and how much belong to the person. It is harder to sell, because the pool of buyers who can replace that person is small. And it is harder to hand over, because a successor inherits relationships and knowledge that were never documented. That is why I framed the session around a single idea. If you fix owner dependence, you make progress on all three obstacles at once. Why owner dependence cuts value Think about the transaction from the buyer's chair. A buyer is not purchasing your past results. A buyer is purchasing the right to future earnings, and every risk to those earnings lowers what the buyer will pay. When the owner holds the key customer relationships, makes every significant decision and carries the technical knowledge, the buyer has to ask what happens after the owner leaves. Customers may follow the owner out the door. Decisions may stall. The buyer may have to hire a senior manager to do what the owner did for free. Each of those concerns can show up as a lower price, a longer transition commitment from the seller or a larger share of the price held back until results are proven. That is the logic behind the 20 to 40 per cent range in my book. It is not a law of nature, and the actual impact varies by business. But the direction is consistent: the more the business depends on you, the less a buyer will pay for it. Retiring is not the same as having a retirement plan One line from the keynote has stayed with me because it describes a common mistake: retiring and having a retirement plan are not the same thing. Plenty of owners will stop working. Far fewer will have built a business that can be sold, transferred or run without them so that their retirement is funded. The CFIB researchers made a related point in their release. A majority of owners rely on the sale of their business to fund retirement, and if they cannot sell, they have to delay it. That adds stress for the owner, the family and the employees. If your retirement depends on a sale, then the saleability of the business is not a side project. It is the retirement plan. The other principle I came back to was simple. Your business should not depend on you. That is not a call to walk away from the business tomorrow. It is a call to build one that gives you more choices, including the choice to stay. Eight value drivers buyers pay for The centre of the keynote was a framework of eight value drivers that buyers pay for. I will not list all eight here, because the full framework, with practical steps for each driver, is in my book. What matters is how to use it. Score each driver honestly. Circle the weakest. Start there. A vague worry that the business may not be ready becomes a short list with a clear first move. And because value is built over years, not weeks, an owner who starts scoring this week is far ahead of one who starts when a buyer calls. Three questions to answer before Monday 1. Do you know the number? Can you state what your business is worth today and what drives that figure? CFIB found that 43 per cent of owners struggle with this. 2. Is your plan on paper? A plan that lives in your head is not a plan. Only nine per cent of owners in the CFIB survey had a formal succession plan. 3. Could the business run without you for an extended stretch? If not, ask what would break first, and start with that. One action this week You do not need to solve everything before your next meeting. Pick the one driver that worries you most and take a single concrete step on it in the next seven days. That could be documenting a process only you know, introducing a second contact to your largest customer or asking an advisor to value the business so that you have a baseline. The owners who get the price they expect are rarely lucky. They tend to be the ones who started early and treated the business as something to be built, not only operated. To score the eight drivers for your own business, start with "Selling Your Canadian Business" at redacted. Sources • Canadian Federation of Independent Business, "Over $2 trillion in business assets are at stake as majority of small business owners plan to exit their business over the next decade," Jan. 10, 2023 • CanadianSME Small Business Summit 2026, Summit agenda, Oct. 13, 2026 • CanadianSME Small Business Summit 2026, event home page • Retail Insider, "Canada faces potential wave of small business closures: MNP", citing Statistics Canada • Sigerist, Karl E., Jr., "Selling Your Canadian Business" (source of the 20 to 40 per cent owner dependence range and the eight value drivers)redacted