Planning an exit years before it happens

An exit plan is not a decision to sell. It is a set of changes that make the company transferable, all of which also make it easier to run.

The two year view

1. Year one, remove dependencyDocument processes, give a second person access to key accounts, add a second supplier where one dominates.
2. Year one, clean the accountsSeparate private from company, put verbal agreements on paper, register what belongs to the company in its own name.
3. Year two, build the recordStable reporting per channel and per product group, month by month, so a reader can see the pattern.
4. Year two, test the fileAssemble what a buyer would ask for and find the gaps while there is still time to fix them.

What buyers discount

Every dependency on one person, one supplier, one channel or one account reduces what a business is worth to someone else. The work of an exit plan is to convert those into arrangements that survive a change of owner.

None of it is exotic. Written procedures, shared access, second sources and clean registrations. The same changes reduce the risk of running the business in the meantime, which is why the work is worth doing even if no sale follows.

Timing

The best moment to prepare is when nothing forces the pace. A business brought to market under time pressure, after illness or a partnership dispute, is negotiated on the seller's deadline rather than on the merits.

Where the process starts

Once the preparation is done, the sale itself is a separate exercise with its own sequence. An outline of that sequence is published at (https://www.businessforsale.eu/services/how-to).