Services02 of 09
Path two · Planning 1–2 years ahead
Build the company a buyer pays more for.
Two years is enough time to change what the company is worth — margins, management, recurring revenue, and how much of it depends on you.
Value Building
If you have a year or two before you want to sell — or you’re not sure you’ll sell at all — that is a completely different opportunity. Two years gives us time to improve margins, develop management, build recurring revenue, improve employee retention, document systems, clean up the financials, reduce owner dependency and increase what the company is worth. And if you ultimately decide not to sell, you still end up with something extremely valuable: a better business.
Who this is for
- You want to sell in one to two years, and you want to go to market on your terms.
- You’ve been approached before and want to be ready the next time someone calls.
- You have a successor in mind — a child, a key employee — who isn’t ready yet.
- You’re not selling, but you’re tired of being the only person who can run the place.
What we do
The work, in order.
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01
Stronger margins
Job costing you can trust. Pricing that reflects what it actually costs to do the work. A clear view of which divisions, service lines and customers make money — and which ones only make revenue.
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02
Management development
A management team a buyer would pay for: field leaders who run the work, an office that runs the business, and an owner who can take a week off without the phone ringing. We find who could run the operation, who needs developing, and who needs to be hired.
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03
Recurring revenue
Service and maintenance agreements, repeat customers, work under contract. Two contractors can have exactly the same annual revenue and dramatically different values — recurring, predictable revenue is a large part of the difference.
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04
Documented systems
Estimating, dispatch, follow-up, project delivery, collections, hiring — written down, trained and repeatable, so the business can be proven rather than described. Systems that exist only in someone’s head are one of the first things a buyer discounts.
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05
Employee retention
Competitive compensation, a culture people want to stay with, and a bench behind every key person. Your technicians, foremen, project managers, estimators and office staff may be most of what a buyer is actually purchasing.
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06
Customer experience before more sales
Owners preparing to sell often think they need more revenue. Maybe — but adding revenue to a poorly organized operation magnifies its problems. First we look at how the phone is answered, how quickly calls are dispatched, whether estimates are followed up, how complaints are handled, and whether customers would call again.
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07
Less dependence on the owner
Every relationship, approval and decision that only you can make today is value that leaves with you. The work of separating the business from the owner is the work of making it sellable.
The principle
The best time to prepare your business for sale is when you don’t have to sell it.
What you get
What you walk away with.
- A baseline: where the company stands today on the measures a buyer will use
- A value-building plan with a realistic timeline and quarterly priorities
- Monthly closes and management reporting you actually run the business on
- A management development and succession plan for every key role
- Documented operating systems that can be trained to new people
- Progress reviewed against the numbers — margin, recurring revenue, owner dependency
Insights
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