Expert Guidance for the Founder's Journey

Exiting a business is a complex mix of strategic choices and personal transition. We provide the calm, senior-led support you need to navigate this process with clarity

1

ASSESS

Where you stand, what buyers see, what needs work

2

IMPROVE

Reduce risk, increase value, build readiness

3

EXECUTE

Deal process with confidence and clarity

Core Focus Areas

Structured support across three key dimensions

Exit Readiness

Strategy

Narrative

Preparedness

Value Drivers

Red Lines

Risk

Deal Readiness

Offers

Buyer Fit

Structure

Diligence

Negotiation Priorities

Decision Support

Price vs. Risk

Objectives

Timing

Trade-offs

Build optionality, reduce risk, and strengthen your position

Three Focused Services to Match Your Journey

The Diagnostic

Exit Readiness Assessment

The Journey

Exit Partner Programme

The Deal

Business Sale Support

Our Services

Choose the level of support that matches where you are in your exit journey

THE DIAGNOSTIC

Exit Readiness Assessment

Who it's for:

Owners planning an exit who want to maximise their eventual sale price, and be confident they are truly buyer-ready.

What you get:

  • A diagnostic assessment of your business through a buyer's lens, developed across 2-3 sessions
  • Identification of value drivers, "red flag" risks, and founder-dependency scores across 6 critical dimensions
  • Narrative and positioning review: how your business story will land with sophisticated acquirers
  • A prioritised 12-month roadmap to protect value and improve optionality
  • A 20-30 page report with realistic valuation range, and clear next-step recommendations
  • A 2-3 hour feedback and strategy session

TIMELINE

4-6 weeks

INVESTMENT

From £2,500

Depending on size and complexity

Request Details
THE JOURNEY

Exit Partner Programme

Who it's for:

Owners who want a senior, independent adviser alongside them for 6-24 months as they get exit-ready, build value and prepare for a transaction — with Business Sale Support services available at deal tempo when a sale is in play.

What you get:

  • Regular 1-on-1 sessions (typically monthly) to keep the exit plan on track and unblock issues
  • A living exit roadmap with 3-5 value creation workstreams (e.g. reduce founder-dependency, tidy financials, documentation, team and succession)
  • Independent, founder-side input on key decisions: timing, mandate choice, buyer fit, and deal trade-offs
  • Support to shape the buyer-ready story and data room so you and your advisers can move quickly when the time is right
  • A calm sounding board during a live process - alongside your CF, legal, and tax teams - to help you stay anchored to your objectives through to completion

Important: Strategic and commercial guidance only. We work alongside, not instead of, your corporate finance, legal, and tax advisers.

TIMELINE

6-24 months

With regular review points

INVESTMENT

Retainer-based

Agreed up-front once we understand your situation

Request Details
THE DEAL

Business Sale Support

Support for the whole of a sale, from your side of the table.

Who it’s for:

Selling your business is a series of decisions you only get to make once, made against people who make them for a living. Business Sale Support puts an experienced adviser beside you for whichever part you’re facing: deciding whether to sell at all, weighing an offer that’s landed, preparing to go to market, understanding who the real buyers are, getting through diligence, and holding steady from agreed terms to completion. You take the part you need.

TIMELINE

Per module

Days to months, depending on the module

INVESTMENT

From £1,000

Each module quoted before it starts

Request Details
How it’s built
Six modules — each complete in itself, with its own start and finish
1
The Sale Decision
from £1,000
2
The Offer Review
from £2,000
3
Launch Preparation
quoted at entry
4
The Buyer Landscape
quoted at entry
5
Diligence Defence
quoted at entry
6
Terms to Completion
monthly
You buy the one your situation needs, and nothing obliges the next.
01
The Sale Decision

You’re at a fork: sell, hold, respond to an approach, raise, or hand the question to a corporate finance firm. We work it through with you — the evidence, the options genuinely open, the honest reading on each — and you leave with a written record of the decision and where each route leads. Some routes lead away from selling, and away from us. The record says so when they do.

02
The Offer Review

Someone wants to buy your business, and their timetable is already running. Inside one to two weeks: what the offer actually says, where it sits against your evidenced position, who the buyer really is, what their diligence will find, and how to prepare for the conversations ahead. You decide what to do with it — the reading is ours, the decision is yours.

03
Launch Preparation

You’ve decided to sell. Before the market hears about it: the honest sell-now position, the call on whether a short sprint would genuinely move it, the data room built in the order diligence will ask, the story evidenced, and the marketing materials and management presentations you’ll need. We’ll also help you decide if choosing a corporate finance firm is the right path or whether your existing team, with us alongside, is appropriate.

04
The Buyer Landscape

Who would credibly buy your business, what each would pay for and fear, and how the process keeps more than one of them real. Evidence, from multiple sources, buyer by buyer — so you’re never negotiating with an audience of one unless you choose to be. We also help with the tensioning strategy to manage multiple parties in the right sequence.

05
Diligence Defence

The buyer’s advisers are about to take your business apart, politely. We prepare you: what they’ll find and in what order, what can be cleared before they ask, what will be contained through structure and what that costs, and how to keep the answers consistent when the questions get pointed.

06
Terms to Completion

The stretch that costs founders the most — agreed terms, then weeks of drafts, schedules and small renegotiations, with exhaustion setting in and the finish line moving. A steady adviser at deal tempo: every document read from your side, every term tested against the lines you set at the start, every wobble met with a calm read.

Where to start
If you’ve been approached
The Offer Review
If the real question is whether to engage at all — or you don’t yet know what you want to do
The Sale Decision
If you’ve decided to sell
Launch Preparation
If the question underneath is “where does my business actually stand?”
Exit Readiness Assessment
everything here can build on it
The seam most exits fall through

Most owners meet two separate worlds on the way to a sale: the adviser who helps them prepare, and the firm that runs the deal. The handover between the two is where preparation gets lost — the sell-side industry says so itself, and calls it the disconnect. The adviser who knew the business leaves the room just as the stakes rise.

We built our services so you never cross that seam alone. The same founder-side adviser who assessed your business and worked the preparation stays with you through the decision, the offer, the diligence and the completion — alongside your existing team. Nothing is re-learned at the moment you can least afford it.

Where we stand in a sale

We advise you; we don’t hold the mandate. Your sale process runs through your appointed corporate finance adviser — or, where you and your accountant choose to run the process together, through that partnership — and we work alongside it, on your side of the table.

We give no legal, tax or regulated financial advice. Your solicitor, your accountant and your tax adviser hold their own ground, under their own regulation and terms. We work alongside them, never instead of them, and we hand over cleanly wherever their ground begins.

What that leaves us is the ground no one else at the table holds: the adviser who sits with you — helping you decide, read the offer, prepare for diligence and hold your position — whose advice on whether to sell, and whether to accept an offer, is never paid on the deal completing.

What it costs

Each module has its own fee, quoted before it starts and complete in itself. Terms to Completion runs as a monthly arrangement, because a deal’s timetable belongs to the buyer and we’d rather say that plainly than guess at a fixed price; we tell you the expected span when we start.

Nothing about any module’s fee depends on you buying another, and there are no continuation discounts to chase. Where a later piece of work builds on an earlier one — or on an Exit Readiness Assessment you’ve already had — it consumes that record at the depth it was done and incorporates it into the report.

And the advice on whether to sell, and whether to accept an offer, is never paid on the sale happening.

Why These Services?

A business that is ready to sell is a better business to own. Our goal is to give you optionality - the freedom to sell, step back, or scale, knowing your business is a transferable asset, not just a job.

Build clarity on what your business is actually worth and why

Reduce risk by identifying and addressing diligence surprises early

Strengthen your position whether you're selling, buying, or just building a better business

Support your decisions with founder-level insight and pragmatic advice, from first thoughts of exit through to completion

Who We Are

Exit Strategy & Solutions is a senior-led advisory practice. Mark serves as the primary adviser for all client engagements, supported by Tom (operational performance and process improvement) and specialist advisers from our network.

By combining our collective deal experience with founder-level thinking, we deliver the strategic clarity and practical implementation support owners need to maximise their outcomes.

Ready to Get Started?

Founder-to-exit experience, on your side. Let’s discuss where you are, what you need, and how to get there — confidentially and without obligation.