Exit Baseline: $1,500
A clear picture of what your business is worth today, built from your own books, by an advisor paid only by you who earns nothing whether you sell, stay, or hire anyone else.
We don't put a dollar figure on answers to a quiz. A number you can plan around starts with your tax returns and financial statements, recast the way a buyer would read them.
What you get
- What your business really earns. Your books adjusted the way a buyer would adjust them (a "recast"), with every adjustment shown and explained.
- What businesses like yours sell for. The price range for your industry and size, with the source cited.
- Where your business sits in that range today.
- How much more it could sell for at today's profit. The dollar distance from where you sit to the top of your range (your "value gap").
- A score on 16 factors buyers care about, each scored 1 to 6 against written standards, with exactly what it takes to reach a 4.
- What a buyer sees: management team depth, key staff and backup, customer concentration, repeat and contracted revenue, brand and how new customers find you, know-how and intellectual property, earnings trend, and market position.
- Whether the business could change hands without falling apart: financial records, written processes and systems, sales and marketing, how much of the sales depend on you, company paperwork and compliance, agreement among the owners, budgets and tracking, and your price expectations compared with the market.
- Anything that could stop a sale or hold your price at the bottom of the range, flagged.
- Whether a buyer could get a bank loan to buy your business at today's value. Most buyers of a business your size borrow through the SBA loan program.
- How today's value compares with the number you have in mind, if you have one.
- How every number was worked out. The worksheet behind every adjustment, and every standard behind your scores, marked met or not met.
- A written report and a 60-minute meeting to walk through it together.
Sample report: fictional company
A fictional company, labeled as fictional on every page, so you can see exactly what you'd get.
How it works
You send three years of tax returns and financial statements.
You and Mark have a recorded conversation, typically two to three hours depending on the business. It can be split across two sessions.
Mark builds the report.
You walk through it together.
What it does not include
How much more you could earn running at the level of the best businesses in your industry, what you personally need from a sale, or a step-by-step plan. Those come with the Enterprise Value Assessment or the Owner Working Group.
The Exit Baseline is a planning tool, not a certified appraisal, and it isn't meant for lenders, buyers, or courts.
What it costs
$1,500, paid before work begins.
- Credited toward an Enterprise Value Assessment if you start one within 180 days.
- Covers your entry into the Owner Working Group, with no second fee.
You pay through a secure payment link. We never see or store your card or bank details.
After the Baseline
Stop there if you like. The report is yours. Or keep going: the Owner Working Group to do the work with guidance and other owners, or the Enterprise Value Assessment for the full picture in dollars.
Or call (312) 815-7999.