What owners ask us

Buyers and their lenders look at five things: financial records they can verify, a business that can run without its owner, a customer base that is not concentrated in one or two accounts, operations and paperwork that transfer cleanly, and a price with evidence behind it. Getting ready means fixing the gaps in each before a buyer sees the business. Our free ten-minute readiness score shows you where you stand on all five.

Ideally six to twelve months before you list, because some fixes, such as moving customer relationships to your team, take time. It is still worth doing if you are about to list, or if your business has been listed for a while without selling.

The readiness score and a 45-minute review call are free. The Sale-Ready Package is a fixed fee: from $5,000 for a business worth under $1 million, from $10,000 for $1 million to $3 million, and from $15,000 for $3 million to $10 million. For a business worth more than $10 million, we quote a fixed fee for the work involved. Half is due when we start and half when we hand back. We never take a percentage of your sale.

Three years of financials recast to show true owner earnings, a customer and revenue analysis, the written story of your business for buyers, an organized document room, a fix-it list ranked by value, and an indicative value range for today and with the gaps closed.

Four weeks from kick-off to hand-back, and about five hours of your time: gathering documents, one ninety-minute conversation, and checking the facts in what we write.

No. We do not list businesses, find or speak to buyers, negotiate, or take success fees. We prepare the business and its documents, and you then sell it through the broker of your choice, or on your own. We also do not give formal valuations, or tax or legal advice.

Small-business accounts are prepared for tax reporting, not to show a buyer the cash flow available to an owner. Recasting presents the same records in the way buyers and lenders assess them. It restates three years of results to show true owner earnings (often called seller’s discretionary earnings, or SDE), by adding back the owner’s above-market pay, personal expenses run through the business and one-off costs. Each adjustment is tied to a document, so a buyer’s accountant and a bank can rely on it.

No. We deal only with you. We never contact your staff, customers, suppliers or competitors, and nothing you share leaves us without your say-so.

Owner-run businesses worth up to about $10 million, in any industry. We work with owners at different stages, from those planning several years ahead to those already preparing to list.