Like bungee jumping, getting married, or hiking the Grand Canyon, selling your business is something you’re likely only going to do once in your life. There’s no practice tee and no batting cage, so it’s worth doing a little planning beforehand.  

In this eBook, you’ll get inside the mind of an acquirer.  

By understanding the motivations, the business models, and how each type of acquirer invests, you’ll be better equipped to make informed decisions about the future of your business. Whether you’re looking to cash out and retire or sell part of your company and roll the dice with a new investor inside your business, having a clear understanding of your potential acquirer gives you a leg up. 

While it may feel like a race at times, selling your business is not a simple baton pass—it’s more like a long, slow goodbye. Each phase is an essential step toward achieving your endgame.

From laying the groundwork to preparing for negotiations and managing the transition, every choice you make shapes both your personal future and the future of your business. 

If you haven’t started already, the best time to start is right now. The next chapter of your life—and your business—is waiting, and with the right guidance, you can approach it with confidence, knowing you’ve made the right decisions for your future. 

Subscription models aren’t just a passing trend. They’re reshaping the way businesses connect with customers. In fact, establishing a recurring revenue stream is the fastest way to grow the value of your business.   

The key isn’t reinventing your business overnight; it’s finding a model that fits your strengths and meets your customers’ needs in a way that makes their lives easier—and keeps them coming back. 

The right subscription model can help you build your company into something even stronger, with more predictable revenue streams that enable you to deliver more rewarding experience for both you and your customers

f you’re like a lot of founders, you’re probably trying to time the sale of your business to coincide with the top of an economic cycle.  

Given today’s headlines, you may be wondering if you have waited too long.  

However, timing the market is a fool’s errand, and contemplating your business exit requires a completely different approach.

In this eBook you will learn alternatives to timing the market, including: 

• When you’re risking your financial freedom. 
• Before you’re sick & tired. 
• When there’s something else you want to do. 
• When you’re on a winning streak.

It can be tempting to try to time the sale of your business to coincide with a peak in the economy. However, unless you have a crystal ball, it’s impossible to know when that moment will hit.  Instead of trying to time the market, look inward and consider selling when the time is right for you and your business. 

 Design your own endgame and discover the best time to sell. 

 In this eBook you will learn:

• The impacts of selling in market peaks and market troughs.
• Proven alternatives to timing the market.
• How to leverage your goals to determine a selling point that’s optimal for you and your business. 

Getting a Value Builder Score is a great first step to help business owners evaluate how ready their company is to sell. But what about the other part of the equation? How ready are your business owner clients to exit? If they aren't, they simply won't participate in an exit planning conversation or, worse, they'll start the conversation and back out of the process farther down the road, leaving you with nothing but dozens of wasted hours. How do you avoid this?

In this eBook you'll discover:

• The 5 essential questions to ask every business owner upfront to ensure a happy and lucrative exit.
• The 2 major factors that lead business owners to sell.
• How to make sure a business owner's reasons for leaving correspond to the type of exit they're planning.
• The best ways to help business owners balance how much they want to get for their business, versus how much they need for a satisfying exit.

As an owner you are likely not chasing an arbitrary net worth so others can affirm your wealthiness. Instead, you are pursuing what that number represents to you. For most owners it’s the feeling of freedom and control that comes from having enough wealth set aside that work becomes a choice, not an obligation. 

While you can’t buy happiness, you can buy personal freedom. It comes from having enough wealth set aside that your work becomes a choice, not an obligation.  The fastest way to build the wealth you need to do “whatever you want whenever you want to”?  Focus on the one number you need to be truly free – the ultimate Owner’s Metric.

In this eBook you will learn: 

• How to buy freedom. 
• Eight attributes that drive the value of your company. 
• The key difference between manager metrics and the owner’s metric.  
• What number you need to focus on to truly be free. 

Does your business lack organization around basic tasks? Do your employees seem reliant on you? Are you questioning how you can improve your growing business and its value? If your business owner answered yes to any of these questions, implementing SOPs may be what they need to solve their problems.

Most people choose entrepreneurship because they want the freedom to decide what to do with their time and energy. If freedom is the goal for your client, SOPs are essential.

In this Definitive Guide to Standard Operating Procedures eBook owners will learn how to:

• Provide their customers with a consistent experience.
• Minimize their time spent problem-solving.
• Train new and existing employees.
• Build a company that is worth more to a buyer.
• Avoid or minimize an earn-out.

It’s popular to think of business valuation as an exact science. However, an often-omitted factor when assessing company value, is you, the business owner. While you may not know when you might have to exit your business, being prepared to exit can pay off when it’s time. 

Many owners think that determining the value of their business involves an in-depth look at their books, sizing up the market, and many other types of quantitative analysis.

 But, in a study of 1,511 companies, we found one factor commonly omitted when assessing the value of a company – the owner. Our research suggests that the owner’s reasons for exit and the steps they take to prepare can play a significant role in the value of a company.

 In this eBook you will learn:

• 3 common reasons business owners exit their company and how each affects business value.
• The 4 areas in the preparation process that can increase business value by 36%.
• Helpful exercises to ensure an owner's exit won’t hurt their company’s value.

Did you know almost half of all business owners will all hit the same stumbling block?  

 In a study of 23,158 companies, we found 40% of business owners share one common strength. They are Rainmakers – the primary revenue driver for their company. Rainmakers are exceptional at rapidly accelerating business growth, but our data suggests they eventually hit a ceiling. Revenue stagnates and business value plateaus, forcing owners to confront the Rainmaker’s Dilemma. 

 Avoid the downhill trap of becoming the Rainmaker and make the transition to Architect of your business.

 In this eBook you will learn:

• The defining characteristics of a Rainmaker.
• The one problem Rainmakers will encounter. 
• Quantitative evidence on how Rainmakers affect company value. 
• The negative impact Rainmakers have on receiving an acquisition offer.
• 9 strategies to transition from a Rainmaker to an Architect.

Selling your business may seem far off into the future, but if exiting your business now would give you the financial resources to do whatever you want, it may be worth considering sooner than feels natural. 

Business owners typically face two difficult choices: when to sell their business and at what price. This eBook offers a simple methodology business owners can apply to help them reach their financial independence – what we call the Freedom Point. Ultimately, uncovering the precise moment when to sell the business and enter the next life phase with full financial freedom.

In this eBook you'll discover:

• If a business owner is ‘risk on’ and has unconsciously passed The Freedom Point.
• A simple, step-by-step process for calculating a business owner’s Freedom Point.
• Why calculating your Freedom Point is even more critical in the age of the pandemic.
• 3 financial options faced once you’ve reached the Freedom Point.

9 Ways Value Builders Prioritize Wealth Over Recognition

There is a small but growing cohort of business owners who have become fantastically rich through building a small business in relative anonymity. Along the way, they have prioritized wealth creation instead of falling into the trap of striving to be popular among their employees, customers, and industry peers. 

You may not know their names, but you can certainly learn from their wealth-building decisions and in this eBook you will discover:

• The surprisingly simple strategy behind one founder’s $87 million exit
• When cross-selling your existing customers is a mistake
• How one founder received an acquisition offer of $35 million just two years after starting his company and why timing the sale of your business may be a fool’s errand
• The strategic move that took one company from being worth three times EBITDA to more than 13 times in just two years 
• The 10/40 rule and how it can jack up your take from the sale of your business
• Three simple ways one founder hung on to almost all of his equity leading up to a $165 million exit

Many business owners fall into the same trap. They become the go-to person for every key decision and spend too much time fighting fires. This often means they struggle with one critical skill—delegation.  

Our latest eBook, The 4 Degrees of Delegation, lays out a simple formula to mastering the art of delegation. Implementing this framework will solve operational issues, but more importantly, will make for a more valuable company.

In this eBook an owner will learn:

• Three ineffective delegation styles to avoid.
• How delegation affects your company’s value.
• When and how to implement the Four Degrees of Delegation.
• The importance of outlining a time-based or financial budget to work within.
• How to get employees to think like an owner.