Exit Runway
Sell a business that runs without you
Buyers ask what happens when you leave. If the honest answer is that it slows down, they pay less.
Exit Runway gets you out of the middle before the sale, so the business they buy can run without you.
90 minutes. $499, credited toward your next step.
Imagine leaving on your own terms
A team that runs the week without calling you
Customers who have someone to call besides you
Numbers that hold up when a buyer’s accountants test them
Every process a buyer asks about, already written down
A buyer who doesn’t need you to stay and run it
Or a son or daughter who can take it over
And you, free to decide what comes next
Buyers pay less for a business that needs you
You built this business so you’d never have to work for anyone else.
Sell it while it still runs through you, and you’ll likely get less for it, and may end up working for whoever bought it.
3 in 10 sales under $50 million last year paid part of the price later, only if the business hit its numbers after the sale. The typical seller waited two years and got less than half of it.
The less it needs you, the better the offers tend to be
Owners report offers about a third higher when the business runs without them. On $2 million a year in earnings, that’s about $2 million more.
What the same business would be offered
An illustration, not a valuation: a business earning $2 million a year, at the average multiples owners reported
- The business depends on the owner$5.8M2.9× earnings
- The business runs without the owner$7.8M3.9× earnings
Most owners start getting ready too late
8 in 10 owners who sold a business worth $5 million to $50 million had done less than a year of exit planning, or none, before they hired a broker or M&A advisor.
81% of owners who recently sold wish they’d spent more time preparing.
Source: UBS Investor Watch, July 2023. Survey of 123 U.S. owners who recently sold.
That’s why it’s a runway. The work starts years before the sale, while there’s still time to change what a buyer will find.
How we get you ready to sell
Exit Runway is the full go-to-market plan, written for a sale, and the build that puts it in place with your team.
Tap any part of the plan or the build to see an example.
Go-to-market plan
SampleWho you are, what you say, and how you answer every objection. Everything else is written from it.
Positioning
For operations leaders who can’t afford downtime, we’re the service partner that fixes it the first time.
Voice
We say “here’s what we found.” We never say “per our assessment.”
Objection reframe
“You’re more expensive.”
“We are, by about 12%. Last year the cheaper option meant a second visit, three times out of ten.”
- Origin story
- Positioning
- Voice
- Elevator pitches
- Objection reframes
Your books, compared with companies your size, in plain English.
| Ratio | Today | Companies your size | Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash from the business | -10% | 8 to 15% | 12% |
| Net margin | -6% | 5 to 12% | 9% |
| Sales growth | 5% | 10 to 20% | 17% |
Marketing
What your buyers believe, fear and push back on
The ops lead 1 of 3 personas
- Believes
- Downtime is the only number the boss reads
- Fears
- Another vendor who needs babysitting
- Pushes back
- “We already have someone for this”
- Decides on
- Response time, then price
Every alternative your buyer weighs, and where you win
| Alternative | Their pitch | Where you win |
|---|---|---|
| National chain | “Coverage everywhere” | Response time |
| Local shop | “We’re cheaper” | Fixed the first time |
| In-house team | “We know the building” | Specialist depth |
Every channel run through the math, from money in to customers out, so you only fund what pays back
Money inreachclickscustomersreturn
| Partner referrals | 5.4× | Fund |
| Email list | 6.4× | Fund |
| Industry events | 1.9× | Fund |
| Influencers | 1.0× | Test |
| Podcast ads | 0.6× | Skip |
| Paid social | 0.2× | Skip |
Every channel you’re weighing, from dollars spent to customers won. Sample numbers.
Sales
Your customer’s whole journey, from never having heard of you to doing everything you hoped they would, with what your CRM tracks at each step
- Never heard of youMarketing
- Knows the problemMarketing · 30%
- First callSales · 40%
- SignsSales · 55%
- OnboardedResults · 95%
- Gets resultsResults · 85%
- Sends a referralResults · 35%
Every step from your customer’s side, well past the signature, with its owner, its rate and what your CRM tracks there. Sample numbers.
What to say at each step of the Perfect Pipeline, written from the way you already sell
Step 3 · First call
- Open
- “What made you look for help now?”
- Listen for
- What the last breakdown cost them
- If they say
- “We tried someone like you.” Ask what went wrong, then show how you’d handle it
- Next step
- Book the site visit before the call ends
Team and systems
The company your plan needs, every seat with the numbers it owns
- RevenueNew revenue
- MarketingQualified leads
- SalesWin rate
- ResultsReferrals
- EmpowermentTeam capacity
What good looks like in each seat, built from the org chart
Head of Revenue
Fill the pipeline so the CEO doesn’t have to.
- Qualified meetings24 / mo
- Win rate30%
- Pipeline$1.2M
- 30 days
- Learn the Perfect Pipeline
- 60 days
- Run discovery calls alone
- 90 days
- Own the forecast
Every tool you use, how they connect, and what to automate first, ready for the build
- Automate first
- New form lead goes to the CRM and books a call
- Then
- Signed proposal starts billing
The plan says what to automate. The build wires it up.
Then we build it with your team
The build
SampleSystems
Your CRM rebuilt around the Perfect Pipeline™, every stage with an owner and the forecast in one place
| Stage | Owner | This month |
|---|---|---|
| First call | Sales | 31 |
| Proposal | Sales | 14 |
| Signed | Sales | 8 |
| Onboarded | Results | 8 |
The emails and handoffs the systems map called for, wired up so they happen without anyone chasing them
- Live
- A new lead books its own first call
- Next
- A signed proposal starts billing
Built, tested and handed to the person who owns it.
The renewals, win-back emails and referral asks your plan calls for, running without you
| What runs | When | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| Renewal reminder | 60 days before the contract ends | Account manager |
| Win-back email | Six months after the last job | Marketing |
| Referral ask | A week after a job closes | Lead tech |
People
The org chart’s seats hired in the order your cash allows, and one of us can sit in a seat until the right person starts
| Seat | Filled by | Since |
|---|---|---|
| Head of Revenue | New hire | Month 5 |
| Operations lead | Promoted from the team | Month 3 |
| Finance lead | Fractional CFO, then a hire | Month 2 |
Every seat’s numbers reviewed every month, so you can watch the business keep them without you
Operations lead
Every job done right the first time, without the owner stepping in.
- First-visit fix rate92%
- Jobs on schedule95%
- Calls to the owner1 / mo
- Month 1
- Owns the schedule
- Month 3
- Owns hiring for the field
- Month 6
- Runs the monthly review
Proof for a buyer
How every job, sale and hire gets done, written by the people who do it, and the judgment calls that never made it into one
Playbook · A new job
- Who
- Scheduler books it, lead tech runs it
- Checklist
- Site safety, parts, fixed on the first visit
- If it goes wrong
- The operations lead calls the customer within a day
- Kept current
- Every quarter, by the team
Your biggest accounts moved to people on your team, so they have someone to call besides you
| Account | Used to call | Now calls |
|---|---|---|
| Food plant, three sites | You | Account manager |
| Regional hospital | You | Head of Revenue |
| Distribution center | You | Account manager |
Books closed the same way every month and tracked against the Financial Decode’s targets
| Ratio | Start | Now | Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash from the business | -10% | 4% | 12% |
| Net margin | -6% | 5% | 9% |
| Sales growth | 5% | 12% | 17% |
Every decision that waits on you, handed to an owner on the org chart, one at a time.
| What used to wait on you | Who decides now | Since |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing the big jobs | Head of Revenue | Month 4 |
| Hiring field technicians | Operations lead | Month 7 |
| Approving discounts and refunds | Account managers | Month 9 |
| Signing off the month’s numbers | Finance lead | Month 14 |
What stays with your deal team
The price
No one can promise a price or a multiple, including us. The buyer and the market set it. What we change is what they find when they look.
The sale
Your banker or broker finds the buyer and runs the sale. We don’t find buyers, negotiate terms or handle money in the deal.
The advice
We’re not a broker, an appraiser, a lawyer or a CPA. We don’t value your business or give tax, legal or investment advice. Your advisors handle that side.
Six steps to the sale
Most exit planning stops at the plan. We put it in place with your people and coach them as they take it over.
1.Discovery
We talk to your team before we talk to you about your team, and we look at the business the way a buyer will.
2.The Visionary Clarity Event
Three days, offsite, just you and our founder. We pull out what you know about the business and what you want after the sale, and put structure around both.
3.Go-to-market plan
How the business goes to market and how it runs, written down so your team can run it without you.
- Brand Codex™
- Financial Decode
- Psychographic Matrix™ personas
- Competitive research
- Channel validation
- The Perfect Pipeline™
- Sales guides
- Org chart
- Team scorecards
- Systems map
4.Build it with your team
We put the plan in place a quarter at a time and coach your team as they take each piece over. The old way retires only once the new way runs, and we check in with your team as they go. Where a seat only you could fill needs someone, one of us can sit in it until the right person is hired.
- CRM and pipeline live
- Automations running
- Renewals and win-backs running
- Key seats filled
- Scorecards running
- Playbooks written
- Key accounts handed off
- Monthly close running
- Your role handed off
5.Step back when you’re ready
Once your team runs it, you step back from the day-to-day, as far as you want. The scorecards keep a record a buyer can see: the business keeping its numbers without you.
6.The sale
Your deal team runs it: your banker or broker finds the buyer, and your lawyer and CPA handle the deal and the taxes. We’re not a broker. When a buyer’s team asks how the business runs, the answers are already written down.
Selling it, or handing it to family
Not every owner sells to a stranger. If the business is going to a son or daughter (or an in-law, or a longtime manager), the work is the same: a business that runs without you, with the answers written down.
The difference is who’s learning it. A family successor gets the same plan, the same scorecards and the same team around them. They take over a business that already runs.
Fractional leaders, if you need them
If your plan calls for a seat you haven’t filled yet, one of us can sit in it until you hire the right person.
Jon Allen- CEO
- COO
Jeff Kimes- CMO
- CRO
David Jones- CFO
Ashley Holl- COO
- Chief of staff
Questions owners ask
Make it run without you, and write down how it runs. That’s what buyers pay for: owners report offers about a third higher when the business runs without them (3.9 times earnings against 2.9, Value Builder System, 2026). In practice it means your decisions handed to people on the org chart, your biggest accounts moved to your team, the playbooks written down and books a buyer’s accountants can test.
Ask yourself four questions. If you stepped away for three weeks, would the business run or start breaking? How many deals still need you to close? Who do your biggest customers call when something goes wrong? Who signs off on the numbers? Every answer that points to you is something a buyer’s team will find.
Because the business still needs them. A buyer covers that risk by keeping you through a handover, or by paying part of the price later, only if the business hits its numbers. Three in ten sales under $50 million did that in 2025, and the typical seller waited two years and got less than half of it (SRS Acquiom, 2026).
Years, while there’s still time to change what a buyer will find. Most owners start too late: eight in ten who sold a business worth $5 million to $50 million had done less than a year of exit planning, or none, before they hired a broker or M&A advisor (IBBA and M&A Source, 2026). And 81% of recent sellers wish they’d spent more time preparing (UBS, 2023).
Then the build won’t have time to finish, and we’ll tell you that up front. A Clarity Map still helps: in 90 minutes you’ll see what a buyer will find, and which fixes can still land before the sale.
The work is the same. The difference is who’s learning it: a son or daughter (or a longtime manager) gets the same plan, the same scorecards and the same team around them, and takes over a business that already runs.
No. Your banker or broker finds the buyer and runs the sale. We do the work that comes before it: a business that runs without you, so when the buyer’s team asks how it works, the answers are already written down.
Start with a Clarity Map
See what a buyer would find before one looks. 90 minutes, live, with us. A written plan within two days. $499, credited toward your next step.
Have a few more questions before you book? Talk to Jon