Tom Arrington built, grew and sold his own business in a seven figure exit.
More than 20 years of experience inside real businesses across Devon and Cornwall sits behind the work.
Which of these is you?
The two need different first steps, so it is worth being honest about which one you are in.
You are preparing ahead
Nothing is under way yet, which gives you time to act. Most of what makes a business straightforward to hand over takes a while to put right.
You are already selling
There is an offer on the table, or conversations have started. Speak to us before paying for a review, because some of what a buyer asks about cannot be put right inside a live process.
What a buyer will want to understand
Buyers nearly always ask the same questions, whatever words they use. Owners often answer some of them well, but don't show the business the way a buyer needs to see it.
Owner dependency
The real test is an unplanned absence. If you walked away for a week with no warning, what would you come back to? And would the answer be different if you had planned to be away? If you are effectively the product, there is very little for anyone else to buy. A business that can be sold has to be able to run without you.
Whether the numbers tell the true story
Accounts can make a business look successful while hiding what the owner's own contribution really costs. An owner working 100 hours a week for free can prop up profitability that is not really there. A serious buyer sees through that very early.
Revenue distribution and deal risk
How the revenue is distributed can matter as much as how much depends on you. Too much resting on one customer, one supplier or one relationship can become a serious obstacle to a sale. Finding that early gives you time to do something about it, rather than meeting it in the middle of a transaction.
What is actually adding value
Bigger does not necessarily mean more valuable. Bloated or loss-making parts of a business can take up people, time and capacity while hurting its value. A fresh and commercially savage set of eyes should tell you what strengthens the business and what may be better cut before a sale.
Transferability
This is not simply about having procedures written down. To hand a business over, the calls you make every day without thinking have to be explained, so somebody else can make them.
The British Business Bank's guidance on selling a business lists a business that relies on its owner or a single customer among the reasons an exit may not be viable.
Where the Commercial Review comes in
In the £500 Commercial Review we look at the business the way a buyer would, and find what is worth fixing before they pick it apart.
What happens after the Review
The Review tells us where the problems are. Then we decide what is actually worth fixing before a buyer arrives.
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Every piece of work has to earn its place. Will it protect the value of the business, strengthen what a buyer is actually buying, or materially help the sale complete?
We spend your time and money where there is a commercial reason to. We do not fix things simply because they could be improved.
Any further work is agreed separately, once the Review has established what is worth doing and where the value is.
We stay in your corner
Selling a business can be brutal, both emotionally and commercially. We stay alongside you and fight for your commercial interests for as long as we are involved.
Tom has been through the process himself, and that experience is part of the value of having us in your corner.
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We find the weak spots that could cost you money, and strengthen what the buyer will actually be paying for.
In a sale, the business itself is the product. We want to make that product as strong as is commercially sensible, but every intervention has to earn its place. There is no point fixing the roof if the foundations are giving way.
We protect every point and every penny. Where the job genuinely needs an accountant, a solicitor, a valuer or another specialist, use one.
But nobody should spend £5,000 on something that can competently be done for £500, simply because they are in the middle of a sale. We question the costs and the decisions, and we protect your money as though it were our own.
What matters to us is that you come out of it knowing somebody fought your corner and protected every penny the business was worth. What a buyer finally pays is theirs to decide, not ours.
If the business depends on you, start there
If the business owns you, it is going to be very difficult to sell it. And the business cannot sell you with it. It is worth knowing how much of it still comes back to you.
The Owner Dependency Quiz, about five minutes, no charge.
Start with a conversation
The conversation takes thirty minutes and costs nothing. We will say plainly whether this is work worth doing yet, and what it would involve if it is.