About

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.

Founder-led. Purpose-built support.

Sterling is founder-led: your engagement is run personally by the founder. When the roadmap calls for specialist depth, these advisors support the work in the disciplines buyers scrutinize most.

Marc E. Marcus

Founder & Managing Advisor

Former IRS Auditor · 15 years of audit experience

Years as an IRS auditor examining businesses the way only the government can — followed by years working directly with 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.

Priya Raman, CPA

Quality of Earnings Preparation

Buyer-side diligence · 150+ QoE engagements

Rebuilds revenue recognition, accruals, and owner add-backs to the standard a buyer’s QoE team applies — with workpapers that survive the retrade conversation.

David Okafor, CPA, CMA

Reporting, Close & Working Capital

Fractional controller discipline

Tightens the monthly close, KPI package, collections, payables, and inventory cadence so the working-capital peg does not eat the proceeds at close.

Maggie Sullivan

Operations & SOP Documentation

Former COO · documentation lead

Turns the operating system into SOPs, delegated authority, and practical proof that the company can run without every decision living in the founder’s head.

Jim Calloway, JD

Deal Team Coordination

60+ closed deals · counsel

Coordinates with the CPA, attorney, banker, and broker so each advisor works from one roadmap — no duplicated fees, no handoff stalls, and a cleaner path to market.

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.

From “someday I’ll sell” to market-ready.

Every engagement runs the same disciplined arc. No hourly meters, no scope drift — a fixed sequence with your enterprise value re-scored as it compounds.

Free · 30 minutes · Zoom

Exit-Readiness Call

Fit and timeline. You leave with your two or three highest-leverage value fixes — useful whether or not we ever work together.

Weeks 1–3 · $9,500 flat

Exit Readiness Assessment

Financial-quality review, a scorecard across the eight value drivers, a valuation-range estimate, and a prioritized 12–36 month roadmap you can hand to your CPA and attorney. Engage the retainer within 90 days and 100% of the fee is credited.

Quarters 1–2 · Foundations

Close discipline & first transfers

Monthly close and reporting packages stand up, add-back hygiene begins, and the first owner-held relationships and decisions transfer to named seconds. The quarterly value re-score starts.

III

Quarters 3–6+ · Compounding

The roadmap, executed

SOP program, pricing and working-capital fixes, concentration de-risking — run month by month on the retainer, with value re-scored every quarter against the eight drivers.

When you’re ready

Market-ready

A documented, transferable company with reporting buyers trust. Your banker or broker takes a cleaner business to market — and for qualifying clients, the Acquisition Partner Program may put a credible first offer at your table from day one.

Three patterns we see every year.

Wholesale distribution · $6–10M revenue

The owner-shaped hole

Every key account, every price, every PO runs through the founder. Buyers read that as revenue that leaves in the owner’s car — and price it as a longer handcuff, a bigger earnout, a lower multiple. Sometimes all three.

The work: a quarter-by-quarter transfer of relationships and pricing authority to named seconds — proven in meeting logs and approval trails a diligence team can audit, not promised in an interview.

B2B services · $3–5M revenue

Books a buyer can’t trust

Cash-basis books, owner expenses through the P&L, revenue recognized whenever the invoice went out. The buyer’s QoE team finds it in week one — and every finding becomes a retrade lever.

The work: revenue recognition and accrual discipline rebuilt 12+ months before market, with an add-back schedule that survives scrutiny — so the trailing numbers stand on their own.

Contract manufacturing · ~$12M revenue

One customer, 45% of revenue

The anchor account renews on a handshake. Concentration like this kills deals late — financing falls through, or the price gets restructured around the risk after the LOI.

The work: contractual term where it can be won, a de-risking plan for the tiers below, and documented pipeline — so the anchor reads as strength instead of fragility.

Scenarios are illustrative composites drawn from the founder’s fifteen years of audit and advisory work. They describe representative patterns, not client engagements of Sterling Exit Partners.

Built for the owner who has one exit to get right.

Buyers don't grade effort. They price risk.