The Exit Acceleration Path
Sell it for what it is actually worth.
Most owners learn what their business is worth at the worst possible moment. This path starts years before a buyer shows up, for the owner with a number already in their head.
What is actually going wrong
You cannot tell anyone.
Not your team, because they will start looking. Not your customers, because they will wonder. Often not your family, because it is not decided yet.
So the biggest financial decision of your working life gets made alone, on nights and weekends, with nobody to think it through with and no way to check whether the number in your head is real.
And the thing that sets that number is not the year you are having. It is how much of this runs without you. A business that depends on you is not an asset, it is a job that happens to have your name on the sign, and a buyer prices it that way.
Three to seven years is how long it takes to change that answer. Which means the expensive mistake is waiting until you are ready to sell.
You have started thinking about it
- You have a number in mind and a rough year, even if you have told nobody.
- The business still depends on you being there, and you already know it.
- You want to know today what a buyer would actually pay, not what you hope.
- You have three to seven years, which is exactly enough time to change the answer.
You need something else
- You are selling this quarter. You need a broker, and we will tell you that rather than sell you this.
- You want a valuation certificate for the bank. That is a different service entirely.
- You are not willing to change how the business runs. The score will not move on its own.
- You want to talk about it publicly. This room is deliberately quiet, and members commit to that.
The mechanism
Eleven factors decide the multiple.
Two businesses with identical profit sell for wildly different numbers, and these eleven are why. Score badly and a buyer pays a low multiple of earnings. Score well and the same earnings fetch a far higher one. That gap is worth more than any year of growth you could have instead.
- 01Financial MuscleWhether your books could survive a buyer looking at them, and whether you know what actually drives your profit.
- 02Growth EngineWhether the business is still climbing, and whether there is room left in the market ahead of it.
- 03Key-Person RiskWhat happens when one employee, one client or one supplier walks out the door.
- 04Cashflow GradeWhether growth costs you cash or makes it, and how long you could survive without new sales.
- 05Revenue PredictabilityHow much of next month is already decided before the month starts.
- 06Market DominationWhether you win on something real, or whether you win on price.
- 07Retention StrengthWhether the customers you win stay, and whether they would say so to a peer without being asked.
- 08Independence ScoreHow much runs without you. This is usually the one that sets the price, and usually the lowest.
- 09Team StrengthWhether the people stay after a sale, and whether they are good enough that a buyer wants them.
- 10Systems and ProcessesWhether the work is written down, or whether it lives in somebody's head.
- 11Due Diligence ReadinessWhat a buyer's lawyer finds when they start turning over rocks.
How it works
Three steps, and the first one costs nothing.
There is no cheap front door on this path, deliberately. A confidential room only works with real peers in it, and you cannot manufacture peers at low volume. Everybody in the room got there through the assessment. Not ready for that yet? Start in The Profit Room.
The Exit Readiness Score
Eleven factors, thirty-three questions, about nine minutes. It tells you where you sit against the bands a buyer uses and which factors are holding your number down. Instant, and nobody sees it but you.
Run it here. A score under 30 means a buyer is not buying a business yet, and we will say so.
The Exit Roadmap
Your personal exit discovery interview, the full readiness assessment on seller's discretionary earnings or EBITDA, the opportunity reveal, and a twelve-step roadmap with a valuation range.
This is where the dollar figure comes from, because it needs your real financials. The roadmap is yours whether you go further or not.
The Exit Advisory
The room, the factors worked in order, a monthly private session and a quarterly planning day, until the day you sell. Small, vetted, competitors kept apart.
You reach it through the Roadmap, not a buy button. Month to month. You can cancel it yourself any time, and there are no refunds.
Not ready for the Roadmap yet
What raises what a buyer pays is the same work that raises what you take home: margin, recurring revenue, and a business that runs without you. Do that work in The Profit Room in the meantime, and arrive at the assessment with better numbers. Nothing about being in it says you are selling.
Why there is no buy button on the advisory
Nobody should commit to an advisory relationship from a web page, and you should not have to say out loud that you are thinking of selling before you are ready. The assessment is the qualification, and it is also the most useful thing you will do this year either way.
Above every path sits The Boardroom: a weekly 1:1 call with Craig plus quarterly and annual planning, five owners at a time, $7,497 a month or $74,970 a year.
What you are joining
The Exit Advisory is a room, not a caseload.
Confidentiality is what causes the isolation, which is exactly why the room belongs on this path most of all. Competitors kept apart, every member committed to keeping what is said inside it.
- 01Somewhere you can finally say it out loudOther owners at the same moment, who have also told nobody. That alone is worth the seat.
- 02Post publicly for the shared workValuation factors, systems, team, documentation. Most of the work is the same for everybody and the answers teach the room.
- 03Message privately for anything with a name on itNumbers, buyers, brokers, family. Some of this never belongs in a group thread and it does not have to be.
- 04Thirty minutes, 1:1, every monthThe conversation you cannot have anywhere else, with somebody who has read your assessment.
- 05A quarterly planning dayWe review the quarter and build the next one before you leave. Three to seven years is a lot of quarters, and this is how they add up to a number.
The Exit Advisory guarantee
If your score has not gone up in two quarters, you get more of me, not an invoice.
We rescore you every quarter. Show up, do the work we prescribe, take the action. If your readiness score has not gone up after two quarters, your monthly private session becomes weekly at no extra cost, for up to twelve weeks.
The conditions, and what stays true
- You show up. Every session and every quarterly rescore.
- You do the work we prescribe. In the order we prescribe it.
- You take the action. What you do not work will not work.
- No refunds, no discounts, no pauses. Also no contract, and you can cancel it yourself any month.
Questions owners ask
Before you start.
Will anybody find out I am thinking about selling?
No. The score is self-serve and nobody sees it but you. The room is vetted, competitors are kept apart, and every member commits to confidentiality. Nothing about membership announces anything, and we do not publish member lists or post about who is in it.
What if my score comes back low?
Then you have found out something genuinely useful several years before it would have cost you money. Below thirty, a buyer is not buying a business yet, they are buying a job with your name on it. We will tell you that plainly and point you at the work that changes it, which is the same work that makes the business pay you better in the meantime.
Do you take a fee when I sell?
No. We are not brokers and we do not take referral fees from them either. When you are ready for a broker we will help you choose one and we earn nothing from the introduction, which is the only way that advice is worth anything.
Why does the assessment cost money when the score is free?
The score is thirty-three questions about how the business runs. The assessment is your actual financials, your add-backs, an interview, a valuation range and a twelve-step roadmap. One is a self-check. The other is real work on real numbers, and it is the thing the whole engagement runs on afterward.
Three to seven years feels like a long time.
It is, and that is the point. The factors that set your multiple are operational, and operational change does not happen in a quarter. The owners who finish well started early. The ones who regret it started when they were already tired.
Nine minutes, nobody sees it but you
Start with the score.
It tells you whether this is a three-year conversation or a seven-year one, and which of the eleven is costing you the most right now. No email needed to see the answer.