Guide

A plain-English guide to exit planning

Exit planning isn't a single event right before you sell. It's the work that decides what your business is worth, and how much of that you actually keep.

Exit planning is the process of preparing a business, and its owner, for a future sale or transition. It covers three stages — Prepare, Maximise Value and Exit on Your Terms — and works best started years before any sale conversation, not months.

Take the Exit Readiness Assessment See the three stages

What exit planning actually means

It's broader than most owners expect.

It isn't just the paperwork before a sale. It covers how the business runs, what it's worth, and what you personally need from the outcome.

It applies whether you're planning to exit in one year or ten. The earlier you start, the more options stay open.

It touches growth, money and legal together. Treating them as separate projects is one of the most common reasons value gets left on the table.

Planning doesn't commit you to selling. It means you're ready whenever the right moment, or the right offer, arrives.

The three stages

Exit Advisory Team's process, in order.

Stage 1

Prepare

Know exactly where you stand, before you plan what to fix.

Start with Prepare →

Stage 2

Maximise Value

See the plan to close the gaps a buyer will find anyway, before they find them.

Go to Maximise Value →

Stage 3

Exit on Your Terms

Choose the route that fits you, and do the work with the right partner.

Go to Exit on Your Terms →

What buyers scrutinise

The Exit Readiness Assessment scores ten areas. These three come up most.

Owner dependency

How much the business relies on you personally, day to day. High dependency tends to lower what a buyer will pay.

Financial reporting

Clean, consistent numbers a buyer can trust without a lengthy unpicking exercise.

Client concentration

How much revenue sits with a small number of customers. Buyers see concentration as risk.

These three sit among the ten areas the Exit Readiness Assessment scores. Take the assessment →

Common exit-planning mistakes

None of these are unusual. All of them are avoidable with enough runway.

Waiting until you've decided to sell before you start preparing. By then, most of the easy value has already been left on the table.

Treating growth, tax and legal as separate projects, run by advisers who've never spoken to each other.

Not knowing your own "Magic Number", what you actually need from a sale, before negotiations start.

Assuming a higher valuation multiple always means a better outcome, when how the deal is structured affects how much you actually keep.

Common questions

What's the difference between exit planning and succession planning?

Succession planning is about who runs or owns the business next, often a family member or manager. Exit planning is broader: it covers the whole process of getting the business, and you, ready for any transition, including a sale to a third party.

How long does exit planning take?

It depends how buyer-ready the business already is, but starting with years of runway rather than months keeps more options open and tends to protect more of the value.

Do I need to have decided to sell before I start?

No. Planning doesn't commit you to selling. Many owners plan for years before deciding whether, or when, to go ahead.

What's a "Magic Number"?

Adam Rhodes' term for working out what you actually need from a sale, financially, worked out before negotiations start rather than during them.

Where do I start?

With the Exit Readiness Assessment. It's free, takes under 8 minutes, and shows you where to focus first.