Founders often start thinking seriously about a sale six months out. By then, most of the value-building work should already be done. Buyers pay for evidence, consistency, and a business that does not depend entirely on one person. None of that can be manufactured in a few months. It needs a runway.
This is the 18-month version of that runway, broken into three phases.
18 to 12 months out: clean up the numbers
This phase is about removing friction before a buyer ever sees your numbers.
Three years of consistent financials. Buyers want to see a pattern, not a single good year. If your reporting has changed format, changed accountant, or changed basis over the last few years, start standardising now so the trend line tells a clear, comparable story.
Resolve related-party items. Loans to directors, personal expenses run through the business, family members on the payroll at above-market rates: all of it needs tidying up. These are the details that slow diligence down and give a buyer's advisers reason to dig further and trust less.
Formalise contracts. Verbal agreements with key customers or suppliers, handshake arrangements with a landlord, informal terms with a major client: put them in writing. A contract that only exists as a relationship disappears the moment ownership changes.
Reduce owner dependence. If the business cannot function for a fortnight without you, that is a red flag a buyer will price in. Start delegating decisions, documenting processes, and building a team that can run the business day to day without your direct involvement. This is as much about people and process as it is about the numbers, but it shows up directly in valuation.
This phase is quiet, unglamorous work. It rarely feels urgent eighteen months out. It is also the work that most directly determines your eventual price, because it is the work a buyer cannot easily verify if you leave it until later.
12 to 6 months out: build the evidence
With the fundamentals in order, the next phase is about proving them.
Management information a buyer can trust. This means monthly numbers that are accurate, timely, and consistent in format, not reconstructed retrospectively when a buyer asks for them. If your reporting has been built well over the previous year, this phase is largely about presentation and packaging rather than starting from scratch.
Defensible forecasts. A forecast that has never been tested against reality is just a hope. Buyers want to see a track record of forecasting reasonably accurately, and a model they can pressure-test with different assumptions without it falling apart.
Data room foundations. Start building the data room now, not the week diligence begins. Contracts, cap table, board minutes, HR records, IP registrations, insurance policies. Assembling this under time pressure during a live process is where avoidable mistakes creep in.
Tax and structure advice, early. How the business is structured, how a sale is taxed, and whether any restructuring makes sense should be addressed well before you are negotiating with a buyer. Some of the more valuable tax planning options simply are not available once a deal is close to signing. Get advice on this well ahead of time, alongside the commercial planning covered in exit and succession planning.
By the end of this phase, you should be able to hand over a credible, well-organised set of information within days of being asked, not weeks.
6 to 0 months out: run the process
The final phase is where the deal itself happens, but it is built entirely on the previous two.
Get the right advisers in place. A corporate finance adviser, a lawyer who has done transactions of this size before, and if you have used one, a fractional CFO who already knows your numbers and can speak to them credibly under buyer scrutiny. The team you assemble here should already understand your business, not be learning it from scratch during diligence.
Set realistic valuation expectations. Talk to advisers early about what the business is actually likely to achieve, based on comparable transactions and current market appetite, not what you hope it is worth. A valuation gap discovered mid-process kills deals and wastes months.
Prepare properly for diligence. Buyers and their advisers will test everything: financials, contracts, customer concentration, key person risk, legal exposure. The less scrambling this requires, the smoother and faster the process runs, and the less leverage a buyer gains from finding gaps.
Keep the business performing. This is the part founders most often underestimate. A sale process is a huge distraction, and it is common for trading to slip during it, right when a buyer is watching most closely. Ring-fence time and attention to keep the business moving forward while advisers run the process around you. Support through a live process, including fundraising and M&A work, exists precisely because founders cannot do both jobs well at once.
The finance function itself is an asset
Here is the point worth sitting with. A buyer is not only buying your revenue, your customers, and your team. They are inheriting your finance function: the systems, the reporting rhythm, the controls, the person or team who can answer questions credibly under pressure.
A business with clean, fast, trustworthy numbers and a finance function that runs without heroics is simply worth more, and it closes faster, because it removes risk a buyer would otherwise have to price in or walk away from.
Eighteen months feels like a long time when a sale is still hypothetical. It feels like exactly the right amount of time once you are in month three of diligence and grateful you started early.
If a sale, a buyout, or a handover is somewhere on your horizon, even a distant one, book a call and let us help you build the runway now.