GGM Wealth Advisors

Move through a transition

The number you sell for matters less than what you keep

Two owners can sign the same purchase price and keep different amounts, sometimes by a wide margin. The difference is structure, timing, and planning that happened years earlier.

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In one paragraph

Business exit planning prepares an owner and a company for a sale or transfer: understanding what the business is worth to a buyer, how deal structure changes the after-tax result, which planning steps must happen well before a letter of intent, and whether the proceeds actually support the life the owner expects afterward.

The problem

Most owners plan the sale and not the aftermath

For many owners, the business is the majority of net worth, the primary income, and a large part of identity. A sale converts all three at once, and the conversion is far less reversible than the years of building that came before it.

The expensive surprises cluster in a few places. Purchase price is not proceeds: structure, allocation, escrow, and earnouts determine what you actually receive and when you are taxed on it. Pre-sale planning that could have helped often becomes unavailable once a letter of intent exists. And the number that felt life-changing can look thin once it has to replace an income for thirty years.

None of this argues against selling. It argues for starting three years earlier than feels necessary.

What we actually do

The work, item by item

  1. 01

    Find the gap between your number and the market's

    Owners usually have a figure in mind. Establishing what a buyer would likely pay, and why, turns that figure into something you can plan around or work to close.

  2. 02

    Work backward from the life you want after

    We calculate what the proceeds need to produce to fund your spending for decades, then compare it to the expected deal. Sometimes the answer is to wait two years. That is a useful answer to have early.

  3. 03

    Understand structure before you negotiate it

    Asset versus stock sale, purchase price allocation, seller financing, rollover equity, and earnouts all change your after-tax result. Knowing this before the term sheet arrives changes what you ask for.

  4. 04

    Use the pre-LOI window

    Certain gifting, trust, and charitable strategies depend on being implemented well before a sale is imminent. Their availability narrows sharply as a deal approaches, which is the strongest argument for early planning.

  5. 05

    Reduce the buyer's reasons to discount you

    Customer concentration, owner dependence, and messy financials all show up as a lower multiple. Several of these can be improved with a two-year runway.

  6. 06

    Run the deal with one coordinated team

    Your M&A attorney, CPA, and banker each hold part of the picture. We keep the pieces in one conversation so your personal outcome is being managed alongside the transaction.

An example

Three years, not three months

An owner takes a call from a buyer and six weeks later has a letter of intent. The price is good. The structure is not: most of it hangs on a two-year earn-out, and the tax treatment of the fixed portion is worse than it needed to be.

The work that would have changed that had a three-year lead time. Financials a buyer does not discount for. A management team that survives the founder leaving. Personal assets built outside the company so the deal is not carrying the entire retirement on its own. Ownership arranged before there is a buyer at the table, because moving it afterward is expensive and sometimes not possible at all.

Nobody starts this three years out, because three years out it feels premature. It is also the last point at which most of the levers still move.

A composite illustration, not a specific client. Your situation and results will differ.

Free tool

At what age does work become optional?

The question most people ask late and quietly. It has a specific answer, and five inputs will get you close enough to know whether the date is where you assumed. If a business is the asset that funds it, there is a field for what a sale would net.

Find your date
Illustration only
Age today
45
Invested
$1,200,000
Added each year
$90,000
Spending target
$180,000
Work becomes optional
61

Straight answers

Business exit planning: common questions

Related

These usually come up alongside it

This material is for general educational purposes only and is not intended as tax, legal, or investment advice. Neither GGM Wealth Advisors nor Cambridge provides tax or legal advice. Please consult a qualified professional about your specific situation. Estimates are illustrative, based solely on the figures you enter and simplified assumptions. Your actual results will differ.

Let's start with a conversation

Bring whatever is on your mind: a vest date you are unsure about, an offer you are weighing, a business you might sell in three years. Nothing to prepare, no cost, and you will leave with something useful whether or not we end up working together.

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