Build a business you would buy from yourself in five years.
Valuable and worth selling, whether you ever sell it or not. Score the 8 areas a buyer looks at, see where you are losing value, and find the clog to pull first.
Eight areas a buyer looks at
Every area of your business either moves your earnings or moves your multiple. Most owners track revenue. Very few track whether the business would hold up if someone else looked under the hood.
Diagnose before you prescribe
A score by itself changes nothing. What changes the business is pulling the right clog first and putting your time on the biggest needle mover.
Where you are today
Answer 25 questions. Each answer describes what is actually true in your business, so it is hard to grade yourself up.
Find the clog
Your report walks you through it. The mess shows up downstream. The clog sits above it. One clog sets the pace of the whole business.
Build, hand off, or buy
Each clog needs a different kind of work. Some areas need to be created. Some need a leader. Some are faster to buy.
Retake every quarter
The trend matters more than the number. Score again in 90 days and see whether the work moved it.
Build
Treat it like a new venture: an owner, a budget, a deadline. This is where a builder's energy belongs.
Hand off
Give it to a leader who can decide at 70% as well as you. Keep your hours for your highest and best use.
Buy
People, an offer, customers, a location. Sometimes the fastest way to fix a problem is to acquire the answer.
I've built and sold three companies, and I broke one. The difference was never the idea. It was whether the business could run, grow and be trusted without me in the middle of it.
Your report
Where you are likely losing value
These are the issues buyers price in, based on how you answered. Each one shows what buyers typically do about it. Fixing these is how you build a business you would buy from yourself.
Area by area
Weakest first. For each area: the answer that pulled your score down, what a buyer sees, what good looks like, and one move for this quarter.
Find your clog
Your score shows where the water lands. Now find the clog sitting above it. One clog sets the pace of the whole business. If you name five, you named none. Fill this in here, print it, or bring it to your table.
Your next 90 days
Your clog card is the plan. One clog. All available resources. 90 days. Every fix should leave behind three things: a written process, a person who owns it, and one number that tells you it is working.
Define solved
Write down what solved looks like and the one number that proves it. Write down how it works today.
Build and hand it off
Build the process and train the person who will own it. Not you.
Measure and retake
Track the number every week. When it holds, retake the score and find the next clog.
Retake your score on . The trend matters more than the number.
The Value Readiness Score is an educational assessment based on business value drivers and readiness factors. It is not a formal valuation, legal opinion, or appraisal report.
Buyer responses in Section 1 come from: CLA, IMAP, Value Builder and Eightx. Customer concentration ranges are practitioner rules of thumb, not fixed market rules.