BUSINESS BROKERAGE & EXIT STRATEGY
You Don't Have to Be Ready to Sell. You Do Need to Understand Your Options.
You've spent years building your business. At some point, the question changes from how to build it to what you ultimately want from it—and what needs to happen before you can step away.
Odyssey Business Group works with business owners to understand where they are today, build value and transferability, evaluate their options, and, when selling is the chosen path, prepare the business for transition and sale.
THE QUESTION IS BIGGER THAN “CAN I SELL?”
What Happens When You Decide You Don't Want to Run It Anymore?
For many business owners, selling is treated as the natural end of the journey. But selling is only one possible outcome—and deciding what comes next should begin long before the business is placed on the market.
An owner may ultimately choose to keep the business with less day-to-day involvement, transfer it to family or management, sell to a third party, merge or partner with another business, or wind the company down. Each path requires different preparation, and each depends on understanding what the owner wants from the business and what the business is capable of providing.
That is why exit planning begins with a different question—not simply “What is my business worth?” but “What do I want my life and my business to look like when I no longer want to run it every day?”
Have you built a business someone can own—or a business only you can operate?
NTRODUCING THE ODYSSEY BUSINESS EXIT STRATEGY™
An Exit Strategy Is About More Than Selling a Business.
The Odyssey Business Exit Strategy™ is a structured process for helping business owners determine how they ultimately want to step away from their business—and what needs to happen before they can do it successfully.
The process begins with the owner, not the transaction. What do you want your life to look like? When do you want to step away? What do you need financially? Who and what matter to you? Only then can we evaluate the business itself: its value, profitability, transferability, owner dependency, management capability, risks, and readiness for transition.
The objective is to create greater value, greater transferability, and more owner options—so that when the time comes, the owner is making a decision from a position of preparation rather than necessity.
The Six Modules
01 — DEFINE YOUR DESTINATION
Determine what you want from the business and what you want your life to look like after you are no longer running it every day.
02 — UNDERSTAND WHERE YOU ARE
Establish your current position as an owner and the current condition of the business, including value, readiness, owner dependency, and transferability.
03 — IDENTIFY THE GAPS
Determine what stands between the business you have today and the outcome you ultimately want.
04 — CREATE THE STRATEGY
Evaluate KEEP, TRANSFER, SELL, MERGE/PARTNER, or WIND DOWN and establish both a primary path and appropriate contingency options.
05 — BUILD VALUE & TRANSFERABILITY
Strengthen the business so its performance, value, relationships, and future are less dependent on the owner.
06 — EXECUTE THE EXIT
When the time is right, move from preparation to succession, transition, or transaction.
You don't have to be ready to sell. You do need to understand your options.
PUTTING YOUR EXIT STRATEGY ON PAPER
Start Building Your Odyssey Business Exit Strategy™.
Our newest book, The Odyssey Business Exit Strategy™, was developed so business owners can work through these decisions deliberately rather than waiting until circumstances force them to act. The companion Book and Workbook guide owners through the six-module process—from defining the destination and understanding today's position to identifying gaps, building value and transferability, and preparing for the eventual transition.
The objective is not to convince an owner to sell. It is to create a written strategy that clarifies where you want to go, what needs to change, and what options you want the business to provide when the time comes.
Odyssey Business Exit Strategy™ Book
The Book explains the principles, decisions, and considerations behind each stage of the exit strategy process. It provides the knowledge and perspective needed to think through your objectives, evaluate your business, and understand the choices available to you.
Odyssey Business Exit Strategy™ Workbook
The companion workbook turns those ideas into your own exit strategy through assessments, questions, exercises, priorities, and action planning. The result is not simply something to read—it is a framework for developing a written strategy for you and your business.
Prefer to Work Through the Process With Experienced Guidance?
The Odyssey Business Exit Strategy™ Advisory Program combines the eBook and workbook with direct advisory support. Together, we assess where you and the business are today, define where you want to go, identify the gaps, and develop a practical strategy for creating greater value, transferability, and owner options.
WHEN SELLING BECOMES THE CHOSEN PATH
Preparation Changes the Conversation.
When an owner decides that selling is the preferred path, the work shifts from building options to preparing the business for the market. A successful transaction depends on more than simply establishing an asking price and finding a buyer.
Buyers evaluate sustainable cash flow, financial performance, management capability, customer concentration, systems, working capital, owner dependency, future opportunity, risk, and the ability of the business to continue performing after ownership changes. Financing matters. Transferability matters. And the number and quality of potential buyers may matter as much as the multiple itself.
Odyssey approaches a business first as a business—and only then as a transaction. We work to understand what is being sold, how its value can be supported, what may concern a buyer, and how the business should be positioned before it is brought to market.
Valuation & Positioning | Sale Preparation | Buyer Identification | Negotiation | Due Diligence | Transaction & Transition
For some owners, the path from first considering an exit to completing a sale may take months. For others, it may take years. Starting earlier creates something every owner should want before making a major decision: options.
You Don't Need to Be Ready to Sell to Start the Conversation.
Whether you're thinking about stepping away in the next year or sometime in the next decade, understanding where you are today is a useful place to begin. Tell us a little about your business, what you're considering, and what prompted you to start thinking about what comes next.