The Annual Exit Planning Workbook: Your Roadmap to a Smooth Business Exit

The Big Band team has been in the acquisitions game for a long time. Collectively, we’ve acquired over 50 businesses…but we’ve evaluated thousands of companies along the way. We have, quite literally, invested the proverbial 10,000 hours into looking at businesses and talking to Founders. We’ve learned a lot through all of that time and one thing that is common across 95% of the businesses we look at - the Founders aren’t really ready to sell. They don’t know exactly what they want. They don’t have a plan. They don’t have the right team. Or they don’t have their information organized in a way to facilitate a sale. At Big Band we’ve set out to try to help that situation by documenting an annual exit planning process to get you better prepared to sell your businesses. Whether you think you will sell this year or ten years down the road, you need to start thinking about it now.

Who Is This Workbook For?

Any business owner who's been in the game for more than two years should take note. NOTE: This isn’t for your board, your exec team, or your investors - this is for you as founder/owner (first). And if you have co-founders/co-owners, the idea is to do this individually and then come together to compare individual perspectives. Annual Exit Planning is your ticket to a better-informed decision about what to do in the next 12 months to prepare for a sale, even if you don’t think selling in the next year ist part of your plan.

What's Annual Exit Planning?

Before we dive in, let's clarify – this isn't your standard annual planning. It's all about looking at your business through your personal exit lens or the lens of a critical buyer. This is important: do it alone. This isn’t a discussion among Co-Founders or with your leadership team. If you have business partners, encourage your partners to do the same, then discuss the results. It's all about alignment.

Why Should You Do This Annually?

Making this a yearly routine reduces stress and keeps you prepared. Take a day off, escape the office, and dive into the workbook. There are no wrong answers here; it's about gaining clarity on your entrepreneurial journey.

The workbook at the link below will walk you, step by step, through an assessment of yourself and your business to assess “readiness” to sell. Hot tip: nobody is ever 100% ready…and that’s okay. By the end you will have a roadmap to get yourself more ready over the next year…when you’ll do the exercise again…yunno…because it’s an annual exercise.

THE PLAYLIST (What We're Watching, Reading, and Listening to)

• Navigating the Entrepreneurial Lifecycle - Rob Walling sits down with Built to Sell to talk through how he re-defined his purpose after selling his marketing automation business Drip. If you missed it earlier in the year, Big Band’s own Kevin McArdle was on the pod introducing Big Band and providing insights into the Mind of the Acquirer.

• Mark Leonard, The Lost Interview -The iconic Constellation Software Founder sat down for a long-form interview (perhaps the only of its kind) to talk culture, business model, organic vs. inorganic growth, and more in a recently uncovered and must-listen interview.

• Brent Beshore of Permanent Equity shares their 10 Deal Commandments. All acquirers should take these to heart!

UPCOMING IRL GIGS

• The full Band will be joining Dan Martell in Arizona the week of October 15th for SaaS Academy Intensive.

• Kevin is speaking at Main Street Summit in early November alongside an impressive lineup of investors and founders.

JOIN THE BAND

We’re building our database with the best leaders and operators out there. If you know exceptionally talented people that may one day want to work with us, please have them get in touch with us at [email protected] or fill out the form on our Connect page.

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