The starting point for every client. A three-week diagnostic conducted by a former IRS auditor, delivered as a written report you can hand to your CPA, attorney, and eventually your banker.
Your last 3 years of financials read the way a buyer's quality-of-earnings team will read them — add-backs, revenue quality, margin trends, red flags.
Your business scored across all eight value drivers, benchmarked against what acquirers in your revenue range expect.
A grounded range for what the business would likely command today — and the bridge to what it could command exit-ready.
The prioritized fix list: what to do, in what order, with the expected value impact of each move.
$9,500 flat · 3 weeks
The engine. We execute the roadmap alongside you and your team, month by month, until the business is ready for market.
Management reports buyers expect: P&L by segment, cash view, KPIs, and a narrative — produced with your bookkeeper or ours to spec.
The operating knowledge moved out of your head and into documented, delegated process.
Deliberate transfer of relationships, decisions, and revenue ownership to the team — measured quarter over quarter.
The two fastest EBITDA and proceeds levers: pricing discipline and a working-capital cycle that won't bleed the deal.
The 8-gap scorecard re-run every quarter so you can watch enterprise value move — and know when it's time to go to market.
When you're ready, we help you brief your broker, banker, attorney, and CPA — and stay at the table through diligence.
$4,500–$7,500/month by size · 12-month initial term
Optional. Disclosed. Structured so your interests stay first.
For qualifying client businesses, our firm — or an affiliated acquisition vehicle — may make an offer to purchase the business when you're ready to sell. Because we believe in the value we help build, we're willing to put our own capital behind it. The structure is deliberately conservative:
We may make the first offer. We get no right to match or block other buyers, so your market process stays fully competitive.
Any offer references independent valuation support — not our own assessment — so the advisory work and the offer stay separated.
The program lives in its own agreement, reviewed by your own counsel before you sign anything. It is never a condition of advisory work.
Decline the program, or decline our offer, and nothing about your advisory engagement changes.
[ATTORNEY-REVIEW PLACEHOLDER: Acquisition Partner Program terms, conflict-of-interest disclosures, and any success-fee arrangements are subject to review by counsel, including applicable state business-broker regulations, before use with clients.]
Your timeline, your numbers, your two or three highest-leverage fixes. No obligation.
Book Your Free Exit-Readiness CallSterling Exit Partners · 10 South Riverside Plaza, Chicago, IL 60606 · hello@sterlingexitpartners.com