If You Can’t Step Away, You Can’t Sell

This week, we're covering:

• Why your business needs to run without you if you ever want to sell it

• 5 tough questions that reveal how dependent your company is on you today

• 3 real steps to start building a transferable business this week

Let’s dive in.

💡 One Big Idea

If You Can’t Step Away, You Can’t Sell

One of the hardest truths most founders don’t want to hear (but need to) is that if your business can't run without you, it's not sellable.

Because buyers don’t want to acquire a job.

They want to acquire a machine — one that's able to run without you in the engine room.

This is one of the biggest things that tanks deals late in the diligence process. A buyer gets excited about the numbers but realizes all the knowledge, decisions, and relationships live inside the founder’s head.

That’s a risk they’re not willing to take, nor should they. So more often than not, they'll either walk away or demand a deep discount.

But there’s good news:

Transferability isn’t about perfection. It’s about systems, documentation, and clarity.

So when you can show that your team knows how to run the operations, your SOPs are dialed in, and your role is limited to strategic oversight, not daily delivery?

Buyers see value. They see scalability. And they start to trust the numbers even more than before.

My advice?

If you want to exit, whether someday soon or ten years down the line, start building a business that doesn’t need you in it.

Your Action Items:

1. Document your core operating processes: Don’t aim for perfection. Just start with your top 5 repeatable workflows. If you got sick tomorrow, someone else should know what to do.

2. Build leadership redundancy: Start training your #2 (or #3) to run things without your daily input. That’s what buyers are looking for — proof that leadership and results don’t depend on you.

3. Step back for one week and watch what breaks: Seriously. Take a vacation or reduce your hours. Then use that as data. Anything that breaks is your playbook for what still needs to be systematized.

If you need help with any of this, just reply to this email or contact us here to learn more. I'm happy to walk you through what the process looks like wherever you're at in your journey.

❓ 5 Key Questions to Ask Yourself Today

Before you even think about an exit or talk to a buyer, there are several important questions you should be asking yourself.

The five questions below are anything but easy to answer. In fact, they'll challenge you to think about things you may never have before. But they could be the difference between a clean and confident exit, or one you wish you could take back:

1️⃣ If you didn’t show up for the next 30 days, how would your business perform?

Would sales close? Would ops run? Would client issues get solved? If not, start creating processes around these things.

2️⃣ How many core processes are documented and accessible, not just known by you or “someone who’s been here forever?"

Remember, documentation increases your valuation.

3️⃣ Who on your team is capable of running the business, and would they want to?

This isn’t just about skill. It’s about leadership, bench strength, and motivation.

4️⃣ Are your financials, customer contracts, and KPIs centralized and easy to understand without you?

If someone else can’t step in and make sense of your business, that’s a massive red flag for buyers.

5️⃣ If you handed your CIM to a buyer today, what would it say about your role?

Are you the glue that holds everything together, or are you replaceable?

📋 3 Action Items For This Week

☑️ Choose one area of your business to document: Start with sales outreach, invoicing, or client onboarding. Write it out step-by-step or record a Loom video and share it with your team.

☑️ Identify your second-in-command and give them more ownership: Start delegating high-leverage tasks to them, not just low-level admin work. See what sticks and what still needs training.

☑️ Block one day next month to fully step away: Put it on the calendar now. Tell your team. Watch what breaks. Fix it. Then repeat the next month.

That's all for this week.

Reply to this email if you have any questions or need help with any of the above. I'd be happy to walk you through it.

Until next time,

Brian