If you remember nothing else, remember this. Prepare your business as if you were going to sell it tomorrow.
By that I mean something calm and steady. Build the business so that on any random Tuesday, if a serious buyer walked in and asked to see everything, you could hand it over and be proud of what they found, with clean books, clean legal, clear records, and a business that runs whether or not you are in the room.
When I sold Protect A Bed, I never set out to sell it. I was raising money to grow a new brand when two buyers showed up instead and bid the price up, and we went into a five-month due diligence and passed with flying colors. Luck had nothing to do with it. We passed because the business had already been prepared as if it would be sold tomorrow, every single day, for fifteen years.
That is the difference between an average price and a top one. The owner who starts cleaning up the year before the sale gets a discount, because buyers can smell a rushed cleanup and they pay less for surprises. The owner who has run a sale-ready business all along gets the premium, because there are no surprises left to find.
Here is the uncomfortable truth, and it matches everything I have seen. Most owners overestimate what their business is worth, often by 20 to 50 percent. Most know they should start preparing two to three years out, and most start far too late, too busy running the business to build the business that sells. You picked up this playbook, so you are not going to be one of them. Eight short chapters, each ending with a checklist. Work through them in order and give yourself real time.