Exit readiness

How prepared a business is to be sold or handed over at full value: provable books, owner independence, and a transferable setup, measured before anyone is looking.

Exit readiness is not about wanting to sell. It is the state in which selling, succession, or stepping back are all OPTIONS, because the business would survive the transition with its value intact. The test collapses to three questions: can a stranger verify the profit, does the business run without the owner, and does the setup (lease, licences, brand, data, systems) transfer?

Readiness is built in ordinary years, not in the listing year: buyers look at multi-year records, and the fixes (books, systems, delegation) each take quarters. The widely cited estimate that 70 to 80 percent of listed businesses never sell is mostly a readiness statistic.

Our free exit readiness score turns the test into ten questions and shows which factor is currently capping the price.