Readiness is a climb, and it has rungs.

Readiness is not a switch you flip. Most owners are somewhere on this climb and have never named where they stand. Naming it is where the work begins.

5 CommandThe price, the timing, and the buyer are yours to set. Read → 4 AttractMore than one kind of buyer can see it and wants it. Read → 3 ProveA stranger can reach your value on the evidence alone. Read → 2 ReleaseIt runs without you for a stretch. Read → 1 RunIt makes money, with you inside it every day. Read →

What the ladder measures

How many kinds of buyer can reach you.

Sorting owners by revenue tells you how big they are. It tells you nothing about whether they are ready. Two businesses the same size can stand on very different rungs.

The ladder measures one thing: how many different kinds of buyer can actually reach you, because each kind prices you differently. Ten buyers of the same kind price you the same way, so that is really one number. Three different kinds price you three different ways, and the highest becomes your floor.

Each rung you earn opens the door to another kind of buyer. At the top, they compete for you.

The five stages

Each rung is a test you can pass.

1RunYou're here when: The business makes steady money, year after year. Show it with: Three years of earnings that hold up.
2ReleaseYou're here when: It runs without you for 90 days. Show it with: Named backups; licenses and key customer relationships held by someone besides you; the big decisions written down.
3ProveYou're here when: A stranger can verify it without you in the room. Show it with: Clean financials, add-backs documented, contracts in one folder.
4AttractYou're here when: Your revenue is locked in and easy to read. Show it with: Top customers on signed agreements, renewals spread out, no single customer too big, a one-page story of what is valuable, and you know who would buy it and why.
5CommandYou're here when: Your own number is settled. Show it with: Your after-tax number, your walk-away floor written down, your team chosen, and a practice run done.

From Buyer-Ready, Chapter 6. Gene, the book's composite, never made it off the first rung before the phone rang. Walt climbed to the top on purpose, two years early.

Getting ready is not selling

Nothing on this ladder commits you to a sale. Every rung makes the business steadier and worth more whether a buyer ever calls or not. "Not for sale" should never mean not prepared.

Which rung are you on?

The Map is 10 questions. It places you on a stage and shows you one thing a buyer would price that you may not have seen. Free. Nobody calls you.

Show me where I stand →

Know your stage already? The Buyer-Ready Kit hands you the five tools to do first for it, in order.