Exit Readiness Partnership
Two seats in the business for the two years before you sell.
For owners who have had the Exit Readiness Review and want its fix list run with them. A CFO and an operating partner in the business every month, working the list on two clocks, with the books taking twelve to twenty-four months and the structure two to five years, re-scored every quarter against the five things a buyer prices. It ends when a buyer can see the proof, on your timeline.
The two clocks
The books take a year or two, and the structure takes longer.
Twenty-four months, two clocks and five workstreams, with a re-score at the end of every quarter.
What the seats do here
The same two seats, pointed at a sale.
The CFO seat closes the books by a set day with margin by line, and documents the add-backs as they happen, so a buyer’s reviewer finds them written down at the time. The operating partner moves pricing authority into a second seat, puts the people a buyer must keep under agreement, hands the vendor programs over with introductions, and gives the owner-held accounts a named contact who is not you. One seat or both. How the seats work, the cadence and the six-month minimum are set out once, on the CFO & Operating Partner page.
What you keep
Between the price in the letter and the cash you keep sit five lines, and the fix list moves four of them.
Owners plan around the price in the letter of intent. Between that figure and the wire sit five lines: the debt repaid at close, the transaction fees, the working capital true-up against the peg, the escrow held at close, and the escrow released months later if nothing is claimed. On the sample business a $5.0 million letter becomes about $3.9 million at close and about $4.1 million once the escrow releases. We put no value on a business in writing. The partnership works on the lines between the letter and the wire. The peg moves with the books, the escrow with the consents and the agreements, the fees with how long the process runs.
Owner dependence
A buyer wants independence proven by time, which is why this starts two years out.
Owner dependence is the finding that takes longest to fix, because the proof is repetition: a second seat that has set prices through a full cycle, a vendor program that renewed without you in the room, an account that stayed after the named contact changed. Step away for three weeks with the phone off and write down what breaks. The list is the first quarter’s work, and the next quarter’s re-score shows whether the fix held.
Where it starts
It starts with the Review, and most owners run the list themselves.
The Exit Readiness Review ends in a fix list with a call on every item. Most owners take the list and run it. The list is written for that. This partnership is for the ones who want it run with them, and it can start the month after the readout or two years later when the list has not moved. If you haven’t had the Review, start there. If you are weighing where you stand first, the Owners & Sellers page lays out the choices.
Get started
Tell us how far out you are.
If you have had the Review, bring the fix list and we’ll tell you which items the seats would take first. If you haven’t, take the free Foundation Check in about ten minutes, or book the Review.