← Enterprise Value Improvement for Mid-market Companies
The Two-Year Professionalisation Roadmap Before a Sale
A professionalisation roadmap ahead of a sale is sequenced by what moves value fastest, usually transferability before growth, since a buyer discounts revenue growth that's still bundled with heavy owner or key-person dependency. Growth pursued before the underlying business is transferable tends to just grow the size of the discount a buyer applies, rather than the price they're willing to pay, which is why the roadmap starts with dependency, not expansion.
Why growth-first feels natural but often backfires
Growth is the more intuitive lever to pull, and it shows up clearly in the topline. But if the growth is still routed through the owner's personal relationships and judgement, it doesn't reduce the risk a buyer is pricing in, it can even increase it, by adding more that depends on one person.
What two years actually buys you
Enough time to genuinely transfer customer relationships, build management information a stranger could steer by, and reduce key-person concentration, none of which can be convincingly demonstrated to a buyer in a matter of months, however much effort is thrown at it.
How the sequencing actually plays out
Roughly the first year focuses on transferability and management information; growth initiatives layer on top once that foundation is credible, so the growth that shows up in the final pre-sale numbers is growth a buyer can trust will continue under new ownership.
What Is Your Company Actually Worth, And What's Holding That Number Down?
The Enterprise Value Scan makes your value drivers explicit and builds a professionalisation roadmap in the order that moves the number fastest, starting two years before you need it, not six months.