Exit Planning Isn’t About Selling. It’s About Optionality.
When most business owners hear “exit planning,” their mind immediately jumps to one thing: selling.
But selling your business is just one form of transition. There are others—stepping back from day-to-day operations, transitioning ownership to the next generation of the family, selling via internal management buyout, or even shifting to a semi-passive ownership model while retaining strategic oversight. The point is, not every exit ends with a fully banked sales process.
What all these paths have in common, though, is this: they go better when you’ve planned ahead.
Selling Is the Hardest Exit of All
Let’s say you do want to sell eventually—now or ten years from now. Here’s the part no one tells you until you’re in it: selling a business is not just hard, it’s brutally hard. It’s not a marathon—it’s an ultramarathon, with a series of uphill climbs and no clear finish line in sight.
Even well-run companies with strong financials and a great team behind them can find themselves bogged down by a never-ending due diligence process, emotionally exhausting negotiations, and a sale timeline that stretches on far longer than anyone expected.
And if your financials are messy? If your customer base is too concentrated? If key systems live only in your head or the heads of your top employees? Then multiply that difficulty tenfold.
So Why Start Exit Planning Now?
Because the sooner you start, the less daunting it becomes.
Good exit planning isn’t just about preparing for a transaction. It’s about creating clarity, increasing optionality, and setting your future self up to make confident, informed decisions—whatever they may be.
Even if you're years away from an exit, or don’t know which route you’ll eventually take, planning ahead gives you time to:
Professionalize your operations so the business can run smoothly without you.
Improve financial visibility and get your reporting in shape.
Diversify your customer base and strengthen key relationships.
Develop and empower your leadership team, so you're not the only decision-maker.
Clarify your own personal goals—what would you want to do after you exit?
None of these things happen overnight. And the longer you wait, the harder they are to rush when opportunity (or necessity) strikes.
What to Do First
If you’re not sure where to begin, here are a few first steps that make a real difference:
Take an exit readiness assessment. It can help you see where your business is strong and where you might have gaps to address.
Start tracking key metrics that a buyer or successor would care about: recurring revenue, customer concentration, margin trends, and team performance, just to name a few.
Schedule time to think about your goals. Not just for your business, but for your life. What would a buyer get excited about doing with your business in it’s next phase? What do you want your role to look like in 5 years? What would a “good” exit look like for you?
Exit planning isn’t a luxury for later. It’s a strategy for today—because someday, whether by choice or by circumstance, you’ll transition out of your business. The question is: Will you be ready?
