A self-assessment for owners thinking about selling
What a buyer would see.
Whether there's an offer in front of you or it's years away, the things I'd look at first are rarely the ones owners expect.
Skip ahead to startMost owners who are thinking about selling have a number in mind, and a fair idea of what the business made last year.
A buyer starts somewhere else. Before the price comes up, they're working out how much of what they'd be paying for leaves the day you do.
Every part of the business that still runs through you gets priced, and it comes off the number until it's fixed. Sometimes it's why they pull out.
The assessment reads your business in the order a buyer does, and shows you where they'd push first, before they get the chance.
The seven things a buyer reads
Every owner answers the same 31 questions. Coming in this way, the report reads your answers as a buyer would, and each of these seven comes back with a reading. These are the readings you want, word for word as the report puts them.
How much of it is you
The business runs without you, and a buyer can see it.
How solid next year's income is
Most of next year's income is already secure.
What survives you leaving
What makes the business work would survive a change of owner.
Whether a buyer can read your numbers
A buyer's accountant could check your figures in a week.
What exists outside people's heads
Most of how the business works is written down.
Whether the earnings hold
You can show what the business earns, and that it will last.
Whether it grows without you
Growth doesn't depend on you, and the trend backs it.
What it actually asks
31 questions about how the business really runs, plus five about the business itself, in eight parts. Allow 45 minutes to an hour, most of it looking things up. None of it is difficult. A few of them will annoy you, and those are the ones I would pay most attention to.
What comes back is a number out of 100, the seven readings behind it, the things somebody from outside would notice first, and the three answers they would press on hardest. You can read it on screen the moment you finish, and have it emailed if you'd rather read it later.
If you would like to know
There's nothing to buy to see your result, and nobody is going to ring you about it. Your answers save as you go, and the sheet will email you a link back if you'd prefer to finish another time.
It scores what you tell it, so answer it carelessly and you'll get a careless number. It's not a valuation, it won't tell you what anyone would pay, and it's not financial, accounting, or legal advice. There is a longer written report afterwards for anyone who wants to go further, and nothing is held back from your result to sell it.
When a buyer sits down with your figures, you'll already know the three answers they'll ask about first.
Start the assessmentIf you'd rather go through it with someone, that's the work I do with the firm: Manolutions.
Your answers are yours. We do not sell them. We do use anonymised data, aggregated, to establish industry, regional and other statistics.