The day the buyer asks for the documents
Every founder I know has a number in their head. It is the figure they think the business is worth, and it usually comes from years of work, late nights and what a friend's business sold for.
Then a buyer turns up and asks a different question. Not "what have you built?" but "what happens when you leave?"
I learned this the hard way. We didn't have the right systems in place, enough scale without concentration, nor a team that could make decisions without me. The business was good. It just was not ready to be bought.
The distance between what a founder thinks the business is worth and what a buyer will actually pay for it is what I call the Exit Gap. Almost every business has one.
The founders who sell well are not the ones without a gap. They are the ones who measured it early enough to close it.
Most owners plan to sell. Few plan how.
The Exit Gap is not a rare problem. It is the normal state of Australian small and medium businesses.
of Australian owners considering an exit have no succession or sale plan
of Australian owners planning to retire have a documented succession plan
have never considered what happens to the business when they leave
Source: Vistaprint research with 510 Australian SME owners, April 2026.
It is not just an Australian problem. In the United States, only 42% of owners have a written transition plan, according to the Exit Planning Institute's 2023 survey of 1,162 owners.
There is good news in the data too. Owners who had started exit preparation reported 20% greater revenue growth in a 2026 Capstone Partners survey of 400 US middle-market owners. That is a reported difference, not proof of cause, but it matches what I see: the work that makes a business sellable also makes it a better business to own.
Where the gap hides
After years of sitting on boards with founders, I see the Exit Gap hide in the same four places. They are the four areas the Exit Gap Scorecard measures.
Founder reliance
If you leave, does the revenue?
Buyers pay for what is left when you walk out. If the biggest customers call you, the key decisions wait for you and the large deals close only when you are in the room, a buyer is not buying a business. They are buying a job they cannot fill.
Start hereTake a planned week away and list every call and decision that still reaches you. That list is your first map of the gap.
Processes
Is it a business, or a habit?
What lives in your head cannot be handed over, tested or valued. Buyers want to see core processes written down and followed, books that close every month, and the same key numbers tracked and acted on.
Start hereWrite down your five most important processes, starting with sales and delivery.
People
Who runs this when you don't?
Buyers pay for the team that stays and can run the business. They will ask who leads each function, what keeps your best people from leaving, and whether every employee and contractor has signed an agreement that assigns their work to the company.
Start hereName a number two for each major function and write down what each one needs to learn.
Scale
Growth you can show, not growth you can claim
Buyers pay for predictable, repeatable growth they can verify. Recurring revenue, no single customer above 20% of revenue, and a growth plan that shows what it costs to win a customer and what each one is worth.
Start hereSplit your revenue into recurring and one-off, and track retention every month.
None of these are fixed in a weekend. Every one of them can be fixed with time, which is why the order you tackle them in matters. You start where the gap is widest.
You don't build an exit in the last 12 months
You build it in the years before. Handing over customer relationships, building a second line of leaders and proving recurring revenue all take time to show up in the numbers a buyer will read.
A founder who starts two or three years out gets to fix the gap. A founder who starts when an offer arrives gets to explain it.
The first step is simply knowing where you stand, and being honest about it.