Robert M. Clinger III, CVA, CBA, CMEA, Managing Director of Highland Global Business Valuations in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, has published Experience Matters Most: How Leadership Conduct Compounds—or Destroys—Value. Drawing on more than 10,000 business valuations across private-company transactions and SBA 7(a) lending, the book argues that most businesses do not lose value in a single dramatic failure — they lose it gradually, through decisions no one records. It traces a causal chain from leadership conduct through trust, execution, and continuity to cost of capital and enterprise value, and closes with ten extended case studies examining both value destroyed and value compounded over decades. Written for business owners, CEOs, lenders, deal professionals, and advisors. Available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C., Oct. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Most businesses do not lose value in a single dramatic failure. They lose it gradually, through decisions nobody records: a boundary quietly surrendered, a hard conversation postponed, an explanation accepted in place of evidence.
That is the argument of Experience Matters Most: How Leadership Conduct Compounds—or Destroys—Value, the new book from Robert M. Clinger III, CVA, CBA, CMEA, Managing Director of Highland Global Business Valuations. Published by Charlotte's House, the book is available now in paperback and ebook on Amazon.
Mr. Clinger has personally completed more than 10,000 business valuations over twenty-five years, for clients ranging from SBA 7(a) lenders to the IRS to privately held companies across the country. The book argues that by the time a business is formally valued, most of the answer has already been determined — not by strategy or market conditions, but by how the business has been run.
"Buyers do not discount a business only because its owner is important," Mr. Clinger said. "They discount it because they cannot verify what survives the owner's departure. That is a conduct problem long before it becomes a valuation problem — and by the time it shows up in a valuation, the window to fix it has usually closed."
The book traces a single causal chain: leadership conduct shapes information quality and trust; trust shapes culture and execution; execution shapes continuity; and continuity shapes perceived risk and the durability of earnings — the conditions that determine enterprise value. Across five parts, it examines evidence over explanation, boundaries and professional courtesy as risk management, emotional attachment in transactions, and goodwill as a conditional asset that depends on people and continuity rather than ownership documents.
Ten extended case studies close the book, drawn from Mr. Clinger's practice and reconstructed as composites. They examine both directions of the same mechanism: a manufacturer whose founder's legacy attachment eroded his own exit value, a textile company that scaled an unprofitable process until it filed for bankruptcy, and — on the other side — a three-person practice whose twenty years of clean records earned a premium multiple, and a bottling operation rebuilt over three decades through standards, dignity, and stewardship.
Experience Matters Most is written for business owners, CEOs of privately held companies, senior managers, commercial and SBA lenders, deal professionals, board members, and advisors. It is Mr. Clinger's fourth book and his first outside the Seven Deadly Sins of Business Valuation series.
Availability: Experience Matters Most: How Leadership Conduct Compounds—or Destroys—Value is available in paperback and ebook on Amazon. ISBN: 979-8995875024 (paperback), 979-8995875031 (ebook). Price: $24.99 paperback, $12.99 ebook.
About Highland Global Business Valuations
Highland Global Business Valuations is a boutique business valuation firm based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, serving SBA 7(a) lenders, business owners, and advisors nationwide. The firm is senior-led, intentionally small, and independent — a structure built so that the professional who takes the engagement is the professional who completes it. Highland Global's guiding principle is that experience matters most.
Media Contact
Stephen Vogel, Valued Veteran Productions, LLC, 1 843-457-2546, [email protected], www.HighlandGlobal.com
SOURCE Highland Global Business Valuations
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