Exit readiness for owner-run businesses
Get your business ready to sell. Then sell it well.
Every business sells better prepared. We give you the same preparation an M&A firm charges tens of thousands of dollars for: a clear read on where you stand, the document serious buyers ask for first, and a path to the right buyer for your size. James Bell, who built and sold companies for 47 years, stands behind every piece.
Two ways forward, depending on your size.
About how much does your business earn in a year, before your own pay and benefits?
Your best guess is fine. A rough number is all the routing needs, and nothing here is stored with your name.
Roughly $2M+ a year
Sell through an M&A firm
You are big enough for the firms that run competitive sales. We get you exit-ready, then James connects you with the M&A firm best placed to sell your business and stays at your side through closing.
Under $2M a year
Get sellable first
The firms that run competitive sales want about two million a year and up. Buyers still want businesses your size. We prepare you to sell through a broker or directly to a buyer, and we help you build the value that gets the bigger firms calling.
building and selling companies
for return on shareholders' investment on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 1998, and #3 in 1999, across two companies James co-founded
James helped take public
his last company operated across
Three steps to a sale you’re proud of.
Learn what buyers pay for, get your business into shape, and meet the right M&A firm when you’re ready to sell.
01 / Learn
Learn what buyers pay for
Buyers pay for clean books, operations that run without you, and proof the business is ready to transfer. Knowing what they look for, and what earns a premium, is where every good sale starts. If you have read this far, you have already started this step.
02 / Prepare
Download the Exit Readiness Playbook
A free, practical guide to getting your books, contracts, and operations into the shape buyers pay more for. The same steps I used on my own companies.
Get the Free Playbook→03 / Sell
Sell it for what it's worth
When you're ready, we talk it through on a free call. From there I connect you with the M&A firm best suited to your business, one I would trust with my own, and stay at your side while they run the sale.
See how it works→
Get your business ready, then meet the right M&A firm.
The wrong firm, or the right one at the wrong time, is how owners leave money behind. After 47 years on both sides of these deals, I know which firms actually deliver for a business like yours.
- 01
Get your business ready
Use the free playbook to get your books, contracts, and operations into the shape buyers pay more for. This is the part I teach you to do yourself.
- 02
Talk it through with me
A free 30-minute call. I'll give you my honest read on where you stand, where the gaps are, and whether it's even the right time to sell.
- 03
Meet the right M&A firm
I introduce you to the firm best suited to your size and your industry, and I stay at your side through the sale so you never negotiate alone.
When you’re ready to sell, I connect you with the right M&A firm and stay involved through closing. The playbook and the first call are free; we’re paid out of the sale, only if it closes.
Book a free 30-minute callThe document that sells your business, told in your words.
Serious buyers read a Confidential Information Memorandum before they read anything else. M&A firms charge thousands of dollars to write one. The CIM Builder starts the same way they do, by asking you, because the owner is the only person who knows the real story.
- 1
Answer a guided questionnaire about your business, in your own words. It saves as you type.
- 2
We draft your Confidential Information Memorandum in the same structure M&A firms use.
- 3
James reads every page with you and verifies the numbers before it is finished.
The Exit Readiness Playbook
Prepared by James Bell
Get ready before a buyer ever calls.
The Exit Readiness Playbook is everything I did to get my own companies ready to sell, written down. Free to download, no strings.
- The same checklist I used on my own companies
- What buyers dig into, and how to be ready for it
- How to step back so the business runs without you
- The bookkeeping habits that raise your final number
Start anywhere: what your business is worth · deal structure and tax · due diligence
What businesses like yours have sold for.
Buyers price an owner-run business on a multiple of what it really earns its owner. These are the averages from reported sales over five years, by industry. An average sets expectations rather than valuing your business, so start here and then work out your own number.
- Bakery2.44x · $200,963
- Car wash4.87x · $800,000
- Catering company2.07x · $416,000
- Cleaning business2.25x · $281,500
- Food truck2.03x · $78,000
- HVAC business2.83x · $750,000
- Landscaping business2.49x · $449,950
- Pest control business2.46x · $250,000
- Plumbing business2.61x · $699,000
- Property management company2.66x · $400,000
- Restaurant2.18x · $220,000
- Trucking company3.00x · $1,100,000
Each page shows that industry’s earnings multiple, revenue multiple and median sale price, and what moves a business above or below the average. For your own figure, the valuation report recasts what your business actually earns and James Bell sets the range himself. If you are further out from a sale, the full list of products and services covers everything from the free playbook to a call.
Source: BizBuySell, Business Valuation Multiples by Industry. Reported sales, Q3 2021 through Q2 2026. Accessed 2026-09-01.
Straight answers.
The questions owners ask me most about selling a business they spent a lifetime building.
Start years before you think you need to. A few months is never enough. The businesses that sell well have been run that way for a long time, and buyers can tell. And getting ready makes the business run better while you still own it.
Spend thirty minutes with James.
He walks you through getting your business sale ready. Nothing gets sold on the call, and you leave with a list of what to fix in your business, whichever way you go from there.
Or email me directly: sellmybusinessplaybook@gmail.com