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The Business Owner’s Exit Blueprint
If you sold your business tomorrow, what exactly would need to replace it?
What your business provides today, what a sale actually puts in your hands, what replaces the work, and what to coordinate before you sign.
A buyer can put a price on the company. That price does not automatically replace everything the company has been doing in your life.
What has the business been doing for you?
It may pay your salary, fund your retirement plan, cover health insurance, pay for a vehicle, give you somewhere to be every morning, and answer the question, "What do you do?"
For a buyer, your business is an asset. For you and your family, it has probably been three things at the same time: an income, an asset and a role. The sale directly prices the asset. What happens to the income and the role needs to be planned on purpose.
You can negotiate a great deal and still get to the other side without knowing what hits your checking account next month or what you are doing Tuesday morning.
When should you work through it?
Before you have a buyer. An exit plan is not supposed to make every decision today. It should show you which decisions need to be made while you still have choices.
The guide walks from what the business provides today to what the sale actually puts in your hands, what replaces the work, and what should be coordinated before you sign.
What this is, and is not
Five short sections with worksheets and checklists you can fill in on screen or print, and sourced figures on what job-based health coverage costs and how the way a sale is built changes how it is taxed.
It is education, not advice. It does not value a business or structure a transaction; your attorney and CPA belong in that conversation.
Inside the guide
- Three things at once. The income, the asset and the role, and which one a buyer actually prices.
- What the business provides today. The salary and draws, and the benefits the company has paid for so long they are easy to forget.
- What the sale puts in your hands. Cash at close, escrow, earnouts, seller notes and rollover equity, with the question to ask about each.
- What replaces the work. The first Tuesday morning after you are done, and the life your spouse wants afterward.
- If the business sold next month. One worksheet from the sale price to what the proceeds may need to provide each month.
- What to coordinate before you sign. Deal structure, taxes, income, investments, insurance, estate planning and family, and the questions worth answering first.