Exit
Exit readiness
A business that only works because you are in it is worth less than one that runs without you. Most of exit readiness is the unglamorous work of moving what lives in your head into defined roles that a buyer can see.
What a buyer is actually assessing
Buyers discount owner dependence heavily, and they are right to. If the relationships, the judgment calls and the institutional knowledge all sit with one person who is about to leave, they are not buying a company — they are buying a customer list and a risk.
The work is to move each of those things into a role, document it, and let it run long enough to prove it holds without you.
How we prepare a company
- Find the dependencies. Every place the business relies on you personally.
- Move them into roles. Defined responsibilities with named owners, not informal habits.
- Build the bench. Leadership in place — fractionally where a full-time seat is not yet warranted.
- Document. Handbooks, policy and process that survive a change of ownership.
- Prove it. Run without you long enough that the numbers demonstrate it.
This starts earlier than people think
Owner dependence takes months to unwind, and the proof takes months more. Beginning the year you want to sell means selling a company that still looks dependent on you, at the price that reflects it.
Straight answers
Questions people ask about exit readiness.
How do I get my company ready to sell?
Make yourself unnecessary on paper. Move the responsibilities that live in your head into defined roles, put the structure, written policy and leadership bench in place that a buyer expects to find, and then let it run without you long enough to prove it works.
How long before a sale should I start preparing?
Six months at an absolute minimum, and a year or more is more realistic. The reason is arithmetic rather than caution: unwinding owner dependence takes months, and demonstrating that it has held takes months after that.
What reduces a company's sale value most?
Owner dependence, followed by undocumented process. Both say the same thing to a buyer — that what they are acquiring might not survive the handover — and both are fixable with enough lead time.
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