Over six million US small and mid-sized businesses will change hands as their owners retire in the coming decade — and most owners have no formal plan. Seventy percent of the businesses that reach market never sell. The tragedy is that the reasons are predictable, visible years in advance, and fixable.
Fifteen years of audit work teaches you exactly how a skeptical professional reads a company's books — because you were that skeptical professional. Buyers and their diligence teams read the same way: they don't grade effort, they price risk. Sterling Exit Partners exists to get your business through that reading with a premium grade, by starting the work 1–5 years before anyone signs an NDA.
You've likely spent decades building your business. You get one exit. The difference between a prepared exit and an unprepared one is routinely the largest single financial swing of an owner's life — larger than any year of profits. That's a project worth running properly.
Fifteen years of audit experience, including years as an IRS auditor examining businesses the way only the government can — followed by years working directly with business owners on the other side of the table. That combination is the firm's method: we prepare your company for the most skeptical reader it will ever face, because we've been that reader. [HEADSHOT PLACEHOLDER · CREDENTIALS PLACEHOLDER — add designations only when held.]
Sterling Exit Partners is an independent advisory firm headquartered at 10 South Riverside Plaza, Chicago, IL 60606, serving owners nationwide via Zoom. Sister practice: Excise Advisors, federal excise tax diagnostics.
Thirty free minutes. Your timeline, your numbers, your highest-leverage fixes.
Book Your Free Exit-Readiness CallSterling Exit Partners · 10 South Riverside Plaza, Chicago, IL 60606 · hello@sterlingexitpartners.com