Thinking About Selling Your Business Someday? Read This First.

Deciding to exit your business is one of the most important financial and emotional decisions an owner will ever make. 

But successful exits — the ones that deliver maximum value with minimal disruption — don’t happen by accident. They happen because you built a business that was exit-ready long before you decide to sell. 

At Red Bike Advisors, we use our Breakaway Business Growth Accelerator framework to help owners build stronger businesses through early strategic planning, disciplined execution, and a roadmap tailored to your goals and business realities — strengthening and positioning your company today so that, when the time comes, you walk into the conversation from a position of strength, clarity, and confidence.

Let's break down what that actually means.

Start With the End in Mind

Exit readiness begins long before negotiations with buyers.

A well-structured exit plan gives you the runway to

• Clean up and optimize financials
• Systemize operations so the business runs without you
• Reduce risks that depress valuation
• Build predictable revenue streams
• Focus on tax-smart deal structuring
• Consider how you’ll handle post-close money management (which may influence how you approach purchase terms)
• Ultimately, unlock a buyer’s willingness to pay top dollar.

In the Breakaway Business Growth Accelerator, we begin by aligning your exit goals with a multi-year strategic roadmap. This proactive approach puts you in control of the outcome instead of being reactive to it.

Through our work with business owners, we’ve identified six key areas that maximize transferable business value and put you in a strong position to sell:

1. Profit, Cash, and KPIs 

Buyers don’t buy potential. They buy evidence of sustainable performance.

I have a post-it note on my desk that says,

Clean, disciplined financials are foundational. We help you:

• Standardize financial reporting using industry-accepted norms
• Benchmark performance against your industry in five key areas to drive bankable profit 
• Normalize earnings so discretionary adjustments are transparent and defensible
• Track key metrics that matter to buyer, including EBITDA or SDE, gross margins, customer retention, and growth trends
• Benchmark what your largest asset (your business) is worth so you can understand your position in the competitive landscape and what it takes to drive an exponential exit
• Perform a “Debt Detox” aka clearing the fog on what you owe, cutting costly interest, and creating a leaner, stronger balance sheet

This disciplined approach builds trust not just with prospective buyers, but with lenders, partners, and internal leadership.

And here’s the bonus: once you understand these numbers, you realize they are levers you can pull to move into the next phase: Scaling with confidence.

2. Scaling with Confidence 

Why scale ahead of selling? Here’s some interesting math for you:

Per Equidam, a startup valuation platform, average sales multiples by SDE (essentially net profit plus whatever you pay yourself in salary, benefits, etc.) rise by size:

Let’s bring this chart to life:

• Current revenue: $1M
• Current profit: $200,000 (20%)
• Sales multiple: 2.5-3.0
• Exit value: $500-600K

Now let’s say you set a goal to double revenue and shore up profit to a more appropriate industry standard in 3 years. Let’s take a look now:

• New revenue: $2M
• New profit: $500,000 (25%)
• Sales multiple: 3.0-4.0
• Exit value: $1.5-2M

The takeaway: As the net profit/SDE goes up, the multiple goes up as well, creating a compounding value effect.

So what’s the key to successful scaling? Ensuring growth doesn’t kill cash or margins.

It’s easy to get excited about revenue, but here’s a little secret: about 2/3 of Inc. 5000 companies fail within five years. The Inc. 5000 measures the fastest-growing independent, privately-held for-profit companies in the U.S. 

Revenue growth is great, but it needs to be paired with healthy cash flow and margins if you want your company to stand the test of time.

Breakaway Business Growth Accelerator helps you:

• Identify and cultivate predictable and profitable revenue streams
• Expand customer diversification to avoid concentration risk
• Tighten Accounts Payable processes for a faster cash conversion cycle
• Track the specific KPIs that sophisticated buyers — including private equity, strategic acquirers, and internal successors — evaluate

A business that can clearly articulate its future growth runway is more attractive and commands higher valuation multiples.

3. Maximize Transferable Business Value

No one wants to buy a job.

If your business collapses without you, it’s harder to sell and it typically sells for less.

That’s not an asset. That’s employment

Breakaway Business Growth Accelerator focuses on:

• Identifying just where you’re the bottleneck
• Strengthening leadership depth so daily operations run smoothly without you
• “Firing” yourself from roles someone else can do and clearly defining responsibilities across teams
• Benchmarking the ratio of owner time to profit (owners love this one!)
• Documenting core processes and standard operating procedures
• Building systems that support scalability and longevity

Buyers pay a premium for businesses that demonstrate continuity after the owner leaves, and the sooner you build that independence, the more value it creates.

And once you free yourself from the day-to-day grind, you may rediscover why you loved the business in the first place — giving you the freedom to keep it or sell it. 

4. Tax-Smart Deal Structuring 

Your tax bill depends largely on how the deal is structured, and smart planning lets you keep more of what you sell. Smart deal structuring can even make your business more affordable for your buyer. Just like in a P&L, it’s not the top-line revenue that matters so much as what you take home from the bottom line.

• In an asset sale, the buyer purchases specific assets such as equipment, goodwill, inventory and supplies, noncompete, and real estate. How those assets are characterized and how payments are structured significantly affects your post-sale tax outcome.
• In a stock sale, the buyer purchases the entire entity, including liabilities. Small business buyers typically avoid this structure due to additional liability exposure and tax considerations.

We guide sellers through deal structure from a tax perspective, including

• Installment considerations
• Potential recapture
• Treatment and allocation of goodwill.

Bringing us into the deal alongside your attorney well before an LOI hits your desk ensures you evaluate structure holistically, not just based on the headline price.

Ultimately, we’re talking about maximizing life-changing money.

5. Execute With Confidence When It’s Time 

When the right buyer appears, you should be ready.

That means:

• Clean and organized SOPs and processes
• A strong team that can execute without you
• Validated financial performance
• Tight operational systems
• A clear narrative about stability, growth, and future potential
• Confidence to negotiate from a position of strength

This isn’t just preparation — it’s transformation.

6. Post-Close Money Management

 The sale isn’t the finish line. It’s the handoff.

For most business owners, an exit creates their largest liquidity event, and their biggest financial risk if the money isn’t managed intentionally. Without a clear post-close strategy, sale proceeds can sit idle, be overexposed, or fail to produce reliable income.

That’s where Red Bike Wealth, in partnership with Financial Gravity, comes in.

At exit time, our focus shifts from business value to personal wealth: designing an investment strategy that supports your life, not just your balance sheet. That includes:

• Designing retirement withdrawal plans that support lifestyle and longevity
• Balancing growth with risk and volatility management
• Aligning investments with your long-term goals and legacy plans
• Coordinating tax-efficient strategies so more of your capital stays invested

A successful exit creates options if the capital is structured correctly.

Becoming Exit-Ready Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Selling your business is one of the most consequential financial events of your life. 

The difference between a mediocre exit and a high-value exit often comes down to one thing: preparation.

With the Breakaway Growth Accelerator, we don’t just prepare you to sell, we help you build a desirable business that:

• Attracts premium buyers
• Commands higher multiples
• Generates strong cash flow today
• Gives you the freedom to choose when — or if — you exit

If you’re ready to take the first step toward an exit that unlocks real value, not just a transaction — let’s talk.