Exit preparation
Most businesses are not ready to sell. That is fixable, and it takes time.
The Exit Planning Institute reports that only 20 to 30% of businesses that go to market actually sell. Almost everything that decides the outcome is settled before the listing exists. We do that work with you, on a defined engagement with a defined end.
What you get
A written readiness assessment, a value-gap analysis, and a twelve to twenty-four month plan with scheduled reviews against it.
What it is not
Not a listing agreement, not a valuation for sale purposes, and not a route into a brokerage. Preparation and selling stay separate decisions.
How it ends
With a business that can transfer, and an owner who has decided what happens next. Whether you then sell, and through whom, is yours to choose.
The engagement
Four stages, and you can stop after any of them
Nothing here requires committing to the whole arc up front.
Assessment
The Value Builder suite, run properly: PREScore for personal readiness, Sellability Score for the eight drivers acquirers price on, and Freedom Score for whether the business funds what you need next. Written up, with the gaps named.
Four to six weeksValue-gap analysis
What you need to net after tax and fees, against what the business would likely bring today. The size of that gap decides what gets worked on first, and occasionally it decides that the timeline has to move.
Two to four weeksThe plan
A written twelve to twenty-four month plan, sequenced by what actually moves value and by how long each item takes. Owner dependence goes first, because it is the slowest to change.
Three to four weeksReviews
Scheduled reviews against the plan, with the assessment re-run at the end so the change is measured rather than asserted. This is the stage that separates a plan from a document.
Quarterly, through the planBefore you engage anyone
Find out whether you need this at all
There is a free eighteen-question readiness score on The Exit Files that takes about five minutes and needs no financial figures. If it comes back high, it will tell you so, and paid preparation would probably not earn its fee.