Growth by Design · Owner Readiness
Most owners can tell you how well their business runs. Fewer can say what it would do if they stepped out of the middle of it. These five questions are a quiet way to find out where you actually stand, well before an exit is on the table. Answer them honestly. The ones that are hard to answer are the ones worth working on first.
Could the business run for ninety days without you making a single decision?
If not, what breaks first? That answer usually points straight at where the organization still depends on you personally.
Which relationships hold only because you're the one holding them?
Customers, vendors, key partners. If they stay because of you rather than because of the company, a buyer sees that, and so should you.
What do you know about how this business works that no one else does?
The pricing logic, the workaround, the reason things are done a certain way. If it lives only in your head, it leaves when you do.
If you handed a decision down today, would it come back to you anyway?
Authority on paper is not the same as authority in practice. Watch where the work actually routes, not where the org chart says it should.
Who are you, outside of being the person this depends on?
The quietest question, and the one owners are least ready for. An exit changes what you own. It also changes that.
You can't fix owner-dependency in the last year before a sale. The owners who leave well built something that could run without them long before they needed it to. That choice makes the business worth more when they sell, and lighter to own in the years before they do.
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Download the questions to keep, or pass along to another owner who should be asking them.
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