If you're reading this, you probably already know your exit is coming. Maybe you've had a soft conversation with a broker. Maybe a competitor called about buying you. Maybe you just want to know your options. The tempting move is to jump straight to market. The right move is to prep first.
Owners who score above 75 on our Exit Readiness Score consistently see 15–25% higher offers than owners who go to market unprepared. That premium doesn't come from a better broker — it comes from the business being diligenceable.
Week 1–2: Baseline your readiness
Run the assessment. Get your score across the five dimensions: financials, management depth, customer concentration, legal structure, and owner dependence. This isn't a beauty exercise; it's a triage tool. You'll see where your score is worst — that's your leverage point.
Bonus: run the same assessment on a competitor. It's clarifying to see where you're stronger and weaker than the businesses you'd be compared to.
Week 3–4: Fix your books
The single highest-return prep move is upgrading your financials. If you're on cash-basis QuickBooks with owner comp and personal expenses mixed in, you're leaving 10–15% on the table before you've even seen an offer.
- Cash-basis to accrual. Buyers price on accrual earnings. Your CPA can restate the last three years in a week.
- Add-back schedule. Document every owner perk, non-recurring expense, and one-time item so the buyer's QoE provider doesn't have to guess.
- Consider a CPA review. A formal review engagement (not a full audit) removes a common diligence discount.
Week 5–8: De-risk your top gaps
Look at your readiness subscores. Whichever is lowest, invest there.
- Owner dependence high? Track your hours for two weeks, then delegate the top-3 recurring tasks. Even moving from 45 to 30 hours/week is a material signal to buyers.
- Customer concentration high? Invest in sales/marketing to widen the base. Getting your top customer below 20% is the biggest single lever in your control.
- No management team? If you can't hire a GM in 90 days, at least identify who among your team would step up — buyers pay materially more for a bench.
Week 9–10: Document
Buyers pay for transferability, and the biggest signal of transferability is written processes. You don't need an ISO-9001-grade manual. You need:
- A one-page org chart with names and roles
- Written SOPs for the 5–10 processes that run the business
- Your customer contract templates
- A vendor list with terms and relationship notes
- An IP inventory (domains, trademarks, key software licenses)
Week 11–12: Assemble the team
Now — and only now — go to market. Your team looks like this:
- M&A advisor or business broker with real deal history in your industry and size. Get 2–3 introductions, interview all of them.
- Deal attorney who has done at least 10 M&A closes in the last 3 years. Don't use your general corporate counsel unless they meet that bar.
- QoE provider for anything above $2M EBITDA. Getting a sell-side QoE done proactively shortens the diligence timeline and removes negotiation levers.
- Wealth advisor to model post-exit personal finances. This shifts the conversation from "am I making a deal?" to "am I making a life?".
The number you're playing for
A well-prepped $1M EBITDA business trades roughly 5.0x. An under-prepped one trades roughly 4.0x. That's a $1M difference on the same underlying business. The 90 days you spend prepping are the highest-return work you'll ever do as an owner.
The last favor you can do for yourself: don't take the first offer. Even a great offer looks better when the buyer knows there are two others in the room.