Raise profit and make the business run without you.
Nick Hunt helps you raise profit and make your fire safety business run without you, so the certificates, contracts and client relationships a buyer is paying for do not leave with the owner.
Part of the Reads Pre-Sale Programme. Led by Nick Hunt, Strategic Growth & Exit Adviser.
Why owner dependence costs you at sale.
In many certificated businesses the owner is the one who signs off commissioning certificates, holds the main client relationships and deals with the certification body's audits. A buyer reads that as risk, because each of those things could leave on completion day.
Profit matters in the same way. Buyers value a business on a multiple of its profit, so margin lost to underpriced contracts or unplanned callouts costs more at sale than it does in any one year.
What changes, and how.
A plan with a date on it
Agreeing what you want from the sale and by when, then working back to the decisions the business needs over the next few years.
Sign-offs that do not depend on you
Moving technical sign-offs, and the roles your third-party certification relies on, to people who will stay, with training records to show it.
Client relationships your team holds
Introducing your senior people to the facilities managers and managing agents behind your largest contracts, so those relationships outlast your involvement.
Margin on every contract
Reviewing maintenance pricing, renewal terms and the cost of reactive callouts, so the profit a buyer values is not quietly given away.
Decisions made at board level
Regular, structured decision-making, with the kind of governance a larger buyer expects to find, so the business keeps moving when the owner is not in the room.
Who you will work with.
Nick Hunt, Strategic Growth & Exit Adviser
Nick Hunt is a Non-Executive Director, Trustee and EMCC-accredited executive coach, and a former FTSE100 financial services executive. He works with founders on strategy, governance and decisions through growth and change, which is the work of making a business less reliant on the person who built it.
When to start.
Around two years before a sale, and earlier if you can. A business that already runs without you is far easier to show a buyer than one that is about to.
See every stage of the programme · Next: Financial preparation
Start with where the business depends on you.
A first conversation is enough to show where the dependence sits and what could change in the time you have.