Stage 1 of five · Does my business depend on me?

The business makes money. You are inside it every day.

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

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

You're here when

The business makes steady money, year after year.

✓You can show it withThree years of earnings that hold up.
→What it unlocksOne kind of buyer, usually one who needs you to stay.

What this stage means

In the book's words.

“The first is to run, to make money with you inside it every day.”

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. One kind of buyer can reach you. That buyer sets the number, and it only goes one way.

What a buyer sees

When he looks at a business on this rung.

A buyer asks one question here, out loud or not: what happens to this place if the owner is gone for 90 days?

If the honest answer is that it gets hurt, the buyer does not see a company worth a multiple. The book puts it plainly: they see a very good job that employs other people. A job does not sell for what a business sells for.

So the buyer does not say no. He says yes, but stay, and we will hold some of the money until we are sure the place survives you.

The one thing holding you here: You

The pricing, the big customers, the hard calls, maybe the license on the wall. If they all run through you, the business cannot leave the building without you, and a buyer is buying the part that stays.

The rows that matter most here

Where buyers look first on this rung.

●You are the pricingThe margin lives in your head and nowhere on paper.
●The relationships are yoursBig customers, key vendors, the referral that only calls you.
●The license is in your nameWhose name is on the paper on the wall: yours or the company's?
●Contracts on a handshakeAccounts that drifted to month to month years ago.

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.

1Dependency InventoryThe vacation test on paper. What breaks if you are gone 90 days.Tool
2Buyer FileEvery call and letter you have ever had, written down. Free data.Tool
3One-SheetYour business on one page, the way a buyer would read it.Tool
4The Walk-ThroughPeople, contracts, renewals, licenses, growth. What is loose.Tool
5Know Your NumberYour core and your floor, before anyone else names a number.Tool

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

Next rung: Release

What moves you to release.

1Run the vacation test honestly and write down every answer that is "me."
2Pick one person to hold one piece of your judgment, and let them make real calls, including wrong ones.
3Write down what nobody ever wrote down: how the work gets priced, who to call when the usual vendor fails.
4Take real time away, and let the business show it can carry itself.

Release →

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.