Stage 3 of five · Would my numbers survive a buyer's diligence?

A stranger can reach your value on the evidence alone.

Readiness is a climb, and it has rungs. This is the prove stage: what it means, what a buyer sees when he looks at a business here, and what moves you up.

You're here when

A stranger can verify it without you in the room.

✓You can show it withClean financials, add-backs documented, contracts in one folder.
→What it unlocksPrivate equity can underwrite it, and your best offer becomes your floor instead of your ceiling.

What this stage means

In the book's words.

“Above that is to prove it, when a stranger who takes nothing on your word can reach the same value on the evidence alone, which is the whole discipline of defending the number.”

From Buyer-Ready, Chapter 6. The ladder measures one thing: how many kinds of buyer can actually reach you, because each kind prices you differently. Three kinds of buyer can reach you: a strategic, an individual investor, and now a financial buyer. The highest price becomes your floor instead of your ceiling.

What a buyer sees

When he looks at a business on this rung.

A buyer here opens the folder and finds what he was going to build himself. The add-backs have receipts. The contracts are signed. The numbers have a date and a signature on them.

Diligence stops being a hunt and starts being a confirmation. That is what defending the number looks like before anyone attacks it.

What he may not see yet is why your business is worth more than the next one like it.

The one thing holding you here: Visibility

The paper holds. But the best things about the business, the moat, the growth you can feel coming, have never been written down, and you have not named which buyers would pay for them.

The rows that matter most here

Where buyers look first on this rung.

●The working capital targetIn a dispute, the better-documented number usually wins.
●Customer concentrationThe same customer reads as risk to one buyer and a reason to pay up to another.
●Books kept for taxesFine for the IRS. A buyer rebuilds them anyway.
●The moat nobody namedA license, a certification, a contract a competitor cannot copy.

In no particular order. Which ones cost you most depends on your numbers and on who would buy you, and nobody honest can rank them from a web page.

Start with these five tools

From the 18 in the workbook.

1Buyer MapYour active set. The paper holds, so name who would actually read it.Tool
2Gap TableEvery place a buyer is likely to cut, with a number on each.Tool
3Evidence LockRe-sign it. A stack of dated baselines proves discipline.Tool
4Add-Back ScheduleKeep the documented column growing. It is the base under every price.Tool
5Question BankThe questions a buyer will ask, answered now, while it costs nothing.Tool

Have the book? The code in the back unlocks all 18 blank tools free at offmarketmethod.com/book.

Next rung: Attract

What moves you to attract.

1Build your buyer map: names, not categories, and how each one makes its money.
2Write down the growth story, with evidence under it, so a buyer can price it.
3Name your moat in the first sentence you use to describe the company.
4Stagger the renewals so the book cannot all walk in the same 60 days.
5Move any license or certification in your name onto the company's side.

← Release · Attract →

Not sure this is your rung?

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 →

Already know your stage? The Buyer-Ready Kit hands you the Start Path for it: these five tools, in order, with the math done for you. $297.