The ending nobody is paid to build

Slide 1 · “It was never about the sale”

straight down the lens, no music

Can I tell you what I think this work is actually about?

Most people think it is about the sale.  It is not.  It is really about the ending, which the sale does not include and which someone has to build.

pause

Over the next quarter of an hour I am going to show you why that is true, where your business sits right now whether you have looked at it or not and what it takes to move.  Stay with me.

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Slide 2 · “You have a rough figure in your head”

If you are anything like the owners I sit with, some of this will sound familiar.

• You have a number in your head for what the business is worth.  If I asked you where it came from, you would tell me it is a feeling.
• Every relationship that matters is with you personally.  The big customers ring you.  The bank knows you.
• Almost nothing important is written down.  It is in your head and it has been there so long it does not feel like a risk.
• If you stopped for ninety days, you are not confident about what would still be standing.
• And you have been meaning to look at all of this for about three years.

lean in slightly

None of that makes you a bad operator.  You built something real.  It does mean the business is worth less to somebody who is not you than you think it is.

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Slide 3 · “Nobody is paid to get you an ending”

Here is the part that is not your fault.

The advice everyone gets is the same.  Talk to your accountant, then talk to a broker when the time comes.  Both of those people are good at what they do.  Neither of them is doing this job.

Your accountant is paid on last year.  A broker is paid on next year.  Every adviser around you is paid on the year before or the year after, so the ending itself is nobody’s deliverable.  It stays yours.

pause, let it land

Which is why owners confuse the exit with the sale.  They put readiness off until the day they decide and the day they decide is exactly the day it is too late to build it.

Readiness is not a project you start two years out.  It is a state you hold.

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Slide 4 · “I have done this three times”

I should tell you who is talking.

I am Kerry Boulton.  I bought my first business, an international freight forwarder, in a management buyout in 1987.  My daughter arrived a month early on the day I was due to sign, which tells you something about how much of this you get to schedule.

I sold it in 1996 to a trade buyer at four times earnings, with 81 staff across five locations and 120 agents worldwide.

My husband and I then spent 25 years building a real estate business that was ready to sell any day of the week, which is why we could say yes when an unexpected offer arrived.

I have retired three times and hated it every time, so now I do the thing I actually love.  I am an Accredited Family Business Advisor, a Certified Value Builder Advisor and a Certified Exit Planning Advisor.

flat, not defensive

What I am not is a broker.  I do not do that.  I do not purport to be a broker at all.  I am paid exactly the same whether you ever hand the business over or keep it for another twenty years.

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Slide 5 · The Readiness Curve

This is the picture I draw on every call.

One line, two axes.  Across the bottom, how little the business depends on you.  Up the side, what you would actually get if the ending arrived today.

There are four states along it.

Trapped.  The business is you.  Every significant relationship is with you personally, nothing is written down and if you stopped for ninety days it would stop with you.  There is nothing to hand over.

Tethered.  Some systems exist.  Operations hold up and growth, the key relationships and every judgement call still route back through you.  A long rope.  You can walk a distance.  You cannot walk away.

Transferable.  It could change hands, or you could step back to a chair role and the value would not walk out with you.  This is where most owners assume they already are.

Optional.  You have a date, the people around you know it and staying is a decision rather than a default.

point at the dashed line

Now the important bit.  There is a dashed line straight down through that curve and it is the exit event.  Death, disability, divorce, disagreement, distress, or an unsolicited offer too good to refuse.

It arrives on its own schedule.  And wherever it falls is what you get.

That is the whole argument.  You do not get to move the line.  You only get to move where you are standing when it lands.

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Slide 6 · Six steps that move one state

Underneath the curve sit three pillars.  Business readiness, financial readiness and personal readiness.  The lowest one governs.

I never show you an average and I never show you a total, because a total invites you to feel comfortable about a number that hides the thing that will cost you.

And there is a fourth element which is not readiness at all.  It is the will to decide.

Six steps move you one state along.

Place.  Twenty questions put you on the curve.  Three pillar scores, a Will score, one named state.  Six or seven minutes.

Name the constraint.  The lowest pillar is the only thing worth working on this quarter.

Value the gap.  What the business is worth today against the number you actually need.  The distance between them is the work.

Design the ending.  Three scales, one to ten each.  Enterprise Value, Liberated Wealth, You 2.0.  The business is the easy part.  Most transitions that fail, fail on the owner.

Call the question.  A date, written down, said out loud to people who will hold you to it.  Only the things you have said create any obligation on you.  The things you have thought create none.

Sprint and re-decide.  Ninety-day sprints against the constraint, an annual re-valuation and at the end of every quarter the same question.  Grow, or hand it over?

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Slide 7 · Proof

I am careful about what I claim, so let me give you the two things I can stand behind completely.

The first is my own record.  Eighty-one staff, five locations, a hundred and twenty agents around the world and it changed hands cleanly in 1996 because it had been built to.  Then twenty-five years of running a business that was ready any day of the week, which is the only reason an unexpected offer was something we could say yes to rather than scramble at.

The second is what clients say.  Jeanette Farren, who chairs boards and has been on the other side of this with me, put it like this.

read it, do not perform it

“Kerry is a powerhouse of clarity and strategy.  Her ability to cut through complexity and guide with wisdom and care is unmatched.  She’s direct when needed, kind when it counts and always focused on real outcomes.”

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Slide 8 · The Endgame Blueprint

If you want help doing this properly, there is one way in and it is called the Endgame Blueprint.

It runs ninety days.  At the end of it you hold your complete readiness picture, a benchmark valuation, your value gap quantified, your Endgame designed on the three scales and the sprint plan that gets you from one to the other.

Diagnosis, destination, route.

And you are never locked in.  We work in ninety-day sprints and at the end of every quarter you decide whether we keep going.  For the first ninety days, if you do the work and I have not delivered your readiness picture, your valuation, your gap and your plan, I keep working with you for free until you have it.

do not say the price here.  You give it on the call.

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Slide 9 · “But Kerry...”

Three things are probably going through your head.  Let me answer them the way I would if you were sitting opposite me.

I don’t want to sell my business.  Good, this isn’t about selling.  It’s about being ready to choose.  Most of my clients never sell, they just stop being trapped.

My accountant looks after this.  Keep them, I work alongside accountants.  They hold the financial pillar.  Nobody’s holding the other two and nobody’s paid to get you an ending.  I’m paid the same whether you sell or stay.

Not yet, maybe next year.  That might be right.  But readiness takes two to three years to build, so ‘not yet’ on starting is really ‘later’ on finishing.  Tell me what specifically will be different next year and I’ll tell you honestly whether waiting costs you anything.

And if you are not the only one who decides, bring whoever else is part of it.  I would rather have them on the call than answer everything twice.

pause

And here is the honest urgency, which is the only kind I use.  Readiness takes two to three years to build.  The dashed line does not wait for you to be ready for it.

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Slide 10 · The ask

So here is what I would like you to do.

Fill in the application under this video.  It takes a few minutes.  I read every answer myself and I prepare a session built around your business, not a template.

Thirty minutes.  I will ask you some direct questions, I will score your three scales live and at the end I will give you my honest read on where you stand.  If I think I can help, I will tell you exactly what that looks like and what it costs.  If I do not, I will tell you that too.

pause, then straight down the lens

And then I will ask you to decide, yes or no. Either is fine.  What I will not do is leave it as silence.

At a time that suits us and we can feel like we’re in control of it, or it happens to us.  That is the whole choice.

I hope to speak with you.

end