Five Signs It’s Time to Start Planning Your Exit — Part 2: What To Do Next
By Rod Johnston, MBA, CMA
Last week I walked through five signs I see over and over in owners who are further along in their thinking about an exit than they realize. If you read that and recognized yourself in two or three of them, here’s what I’d actually tell you to do about it. Not someday. Now, while you still have the runway to do it right.
Your business can’t run without you. Start building the business a real operating manual. Document the processes only you know, the vendor relationships, the pricing calls, the way you handle the customer who always calls right before a job. Then pick one week and actually leave. Let your team run it without you answering the phone. Whatever breaks is exactly what a buyer’s advisor will find anyway. Better you find it first, with time to fix it.
You’ve quieted down. Maintaining isn’t a strategy, it’s a decision to leave money on the table. Value is set off your trailing three years, so easing off now still shows up in your numbers on the day you sell. Get a real, current read on where the business stands today, revenue, margins, and value, then get back to pushing the top line as high as it will go. The owners who get the best price are the ones who never took their foot off the gas.
You catch yourself doing the math. Stop doing that math with a guess and a conference rumor. Have one real conversation with someone who values businesses like yours for a living. It doesn’t commit you to selling. It just replaces the number in your head with a number you can trust.
Your best people could walk with a piece of the business. Write down what only they know: pricing, vendor relationships, the accounts only they can handle. Cross-train quietly where you can. Nobody needs to know why, or that you’re even thinking about selling. That stays confidential until the papers are signed.
You don’t know what your business is worth. Get an actual valuation done, based on your real financials, not a guess, not a number you heard from another owner at a conference. Most owners we talk to haven’t had one done in years, and you can’t plan an exit around a number you don’t have.
None of this requires you to list your business tomorrow. What it requires is starting now, while you have years to work with instead of months. The owners who end up with real choices when they sell are the ones who did this work early, quietly, on their own timeline. That’s the whole difference.
If you’d like a second set of eyes on where you stand, we’d be glad to help. Reach out anytime.
High Mark Exit Advisors
If you’d like a practical next step, download our free Exit Readiness Checklist and see where your business stands today.