“Not for sale” should never mean not prepared.
Find out what would make a buyer pay you less. Free, in 10 minutes.
For owners of established businesses, whether you sell next year, in ten years, or never. Yes-or-no questions. No financials. Your result shows on screen.
It shows where a buyer looks. It does not value your business.
From Ron’s articles in Forbes Business Council and Fast Company Executive Board.
★★★★★Home run for business owners!
“The author did an incredible job of understanding and communicating the small details that are so often overlooked by business owners. Ron Smith explains how the watch works instead of simply telling you what time it is and that distinction is crucial for any business owner looking to grow. ...”
The book that shows you what a buyer sees.
A buyer reads your business through a different lens than you or your CPA. This book hands you that lens.
Buyer-Ready is the field guide to the seven things a buyer checks, why they cut the price when they do, and how to fix it in the quiet years before anyone calls. Written for owners of real businesses, not for bankers.
$24.59
5.0 stars on Amazon (6 reviews)
$24.59, printed to order. A 30-day refund if it does not earn its place on your shelf.
Know Your Number
Replace the guess in your head with a number you can prove, line by line.
Know Your Number gives you the Gap Table course and the three tools that do the parts owners skip: your add-backs, your working-capital peg, and the proof a buyer and your CPA both accept.
$100Bought one at a time: $379.59
Bought one at a time, these pieces come to $379.59. Here they are $100, and every dollar credits toward Defend Your Number if you go further within 30 days.
★★★★★Great book!
“Fantastic book. The author offered knowledgeable insights into businesses and being “buyer-ready”. A book that you’d reach for over and over in different phases of your business. Would also make a great gift!”
★★★★★An important read for business owners
“As a small business owner, I know how easy it is to get caught up in the day-to-day of building a business and lose sight of the bigger picture. The idea behind Buyer-Ready is an important reminder to think strategically about the long-term value and future of what you’re building. A timely topic for entrepreneurs and business owners alike!”
★★★★★A smart gift for any business owner
“I gave Buyer-Ready to a friend who was in the middle of selling his business, and he told me it was genuinely helpful throughout the process. If someone you know is thinking about an exit, or just wants to protect what they’ve built, this is an easy book to recommend.”
The Seven Steps to Buyer-Ready
Start where it is free.
Run the Map. Ten minutes, and it shows you the first place a buyer would look, on one of five readiness stages. When you want to turn your gaps into a number, Know Your Number gives you the first two steps for $100 and credits in full toward Defend Your Number within 30 days, which closes the other five. One add-back with no paper behind it cost Walt (a composite) about $108,000 of price. This is $100. No system, no pressure. A number you can prove, and the steps to defend it.
About ten minutes, thirteen questions, no financials.
- 1 The Map
See every place a buyer would knock the price down, in about ten minutes, before you change a thing.
- 2 The Gap Table
Put a dollar figure on each of those gaps, so you are working from a number instead of a worry.
- 3 Proof
Turn the claims about your business into evidence a buyer’s diligence team cannot wave away.
- 4 Revenue
Show that the money comes back next year without you holding it up, because repeatable revenue is what gets paid for.
- 5 Independence
Take yourself out of the daily critical path, so the business is worth as much the day after you leave as the day before.
- 6 Continuity
Lock down the people, customers, and contracts so none of them can walk when ownership changes hands.
- 7 Endgame
Have the deal file, the walk-away number, and the plan ready, so the offer finds you prepared instead of the other way around.
★★★★★Great Book
“Great book and very informative as a business owner.”
To the owner reading this,
I grew up in my family’s HVAC business.
My parents, my sister and my brother-in-law still run it. I spent a decade on Wall Street, then 15 years in family-business advisory, always on the owner’s side of the table.
Here’s what I’ve watched happen, over and over: a good owner gets a call, agrees on a number, and watches it shrink. Not because anyone cheated them. Because the buyer found things they had never written down, and priced every one of them.
None of it had to happen. So I wrote Buyer-Ready, and I built the Map so you can see what a buyer would see, on your own time, years before it matters.
Ron Smith
Certified Merger & Acquisition Advisor (CM&AA®), author of Buyer-Ready and Head of Research at the Cordis Institute. From Ron’s articles in Forbes Business Council and Fast Company Executive Board.
The Map shows you where a buyer would look. Turning that into your own number is the paid step, and only if you want it.
★★★★★Great Book!
“Gifted this book to a friend who owns a business and is interested in the selling process. They absolutely loved it!”
Sell in five years, or never. Either way, on your terms.
It shows where a buyer looks. It does not value your business.
P.S. If you’re not planning to sell, this matters more, not less. Buyers find the same kinds of gaps in every business. The owners who keep their number are the ones who found them first, years early, on their own time.