The Exit Readiness Playbook

How to read this

Part 1 of 13 · All chapters

Read this once cover to cover in about an hour, then keep it close. It walks the whole journey of selling a business, from deciding whether now is the right time all the way to the Monday after the check clears. Every chapter stays short and high at the idea level on purpose, because you are a busy owner rather than a deal lawyer. When something turns technical, I point you to the idea and tell you to work the details with your own accountant and lawyer, which is exactly how I handle it myself.

Each chapter ends with a tight checklist you can actually use. Work them in order, give yourself real time, and you will end up in the small group of owners who get paid what their life's work is genuinely worth.

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Table of contents

  1. Forty-seven years on every side of the table
  2. The one idea that runs through this whole book
  3. Chapter 1. Is it the right time, and what "ready" really means
  4. Chapter 2. What your business is actually worth
  5. Chapter 3. Clean books and the few documents a buyer needs
  6. Chapter 4. The silent value killers
  7. Chapter 5. How buyers are actually found
  8. Chapter 6. The deal, the structure, and the tax basics that move your take-home
  9. Chapter 7. Due diligence, and the data room
  10. Chapter 8. Transition and life after the sale
  11. Your first week, and five takeaways
  12. Book a free 30-minute call

A quick word before we start

I am not a lawyer, a CPA, or a licensed financial advisor, and nothing here is formal advice for your specific situation. Treat it as general education and the hard-won judgment of someone who has bought, built, and sold real companies for more than forty-seven years, and use it to ask your own advisors sharper questions. That alone will be worth far more than this book cost you, which was nothing. When the time comes, I can help you understand what kind of buyer and what kind of advisor actually fit your situation and point you in the right direction. That is the whole promise, with no magic and no inflated claims.