Are you ready to sell? The readiness checklist

Wanting out isn't the same as being ready

Plenty of owners are ready to sell in their head. They're tired, they've had a good run, and they want their life back.

Being ready in your head and being ready on paper are two very different things. The buyer cares about what they find when they open the bonnet, not how ready you feel. If the business isn't ready, you get one of three outcomes. A low offer, a deal loaded with earn-outs and conditions, or no deal at all.

So before you talk to anyone, run yourself through the checklist a serious buyer will run through you. Be honest. The mirror is cheaper than the market.

Can the business run without you for a month?

The single biggest test. Picture yourself gone for a month. No calls, no email, no quiet steering from the sidelines.

Does the business keep serving customers, making decisions, and turning a profit? Or does it slowly seize up until you get back?

If it seizes, what you own is a job, not a business. And no one pays a strong price for a job with your name on the door. Fix this first, because it's the one that caps everything else.

"If it can't run without you for a month, you're not selling a business. You're selling yourself."

Do your numbers tell one story?

A buyer will ask the same question five different ways to five different people. If they get the same answer every time, they relax. If the sales figure in your head doesn't match the system, and the system doesn't match the accounts, they stop trusting all of it.

Ask yourself:

• If I pull revenue by product, by customer and by month, does it reconcile?
• Do my systems and my accounts agree without someone "explaining the difference"?
• Can I show three years of clean, consistent numbers, not a story that needs a translator?

One version of the truth builds confidence. Three versions kill the price.

Is your revenue predictable?

Buyers pay for what they can count on. Look hard at where your money comes from.

How much of next year's revenue is already locked in through contracts, renewals or repeat customers who always come back? And how much do you have to go out and win from scratch, quarter after quarter?

The more that renews on its own, the safer you look, and the more you're worth. If almost all of it is a fresh fight every quarter, expect that to show up as a discount. You can still sell. But think about locking more of it down before you do.

Is there a team, or just you and some helpers?

There's a difference between people who do tasks and people who run the place.

A buyer wants a management layer that can make decisions, own outcomes, and keep the business moving without the founder. If the honest answer is that everyone waits for you to decide, that's a gap, and it's one buyers spot within a week.

You don't need a full board. You need enough of a team that the business has a brain that isn't just yours.

Is the important stuff written down?

What lives only in your head leaves when you do. Buyers know this, so they check.

• Are your core processes documented and actually followed, or are they folklore?
• Are the key customer relationships held by the business, or personally by you?
• If your best person quit tomorrow, would their knowledge walk out with them?

Written-down, systemised, and repeatable is what a buyer pays for. Heroics and memory are what they discount.

Are the boring things in order?

Deals die in the boring detail. Long before anyone talks price, get the housekeeping straight.

Contracts signed and filed. Customer and supplier agreements in writing. Property, leases and licences clean. No nasty surprises hiding in a drawer that a diligence team will find and use against you. None of this raises your price on its own. But any one of them, left messy, can knock it down or stall the whole thing.

Score yourself honestly

Read back through those six sections. For each one, be brutally honest. Green, amber or red.

If most are green, you're closer than you think, and it's worth getting proper advice. If you're staring at a wall of amber and red, that's not bad news. That's a to-do list, and every item on it you fix before you go to market comes straight back to you in the price.

The worst move is to go to market red, get a disappointing offer, and only then learn what you should have fixed two years earlier.

Want the full version scored against what buyers actually check? Book a strategy call and we'll run your business through the whole readiness checklist and show you where you stand.