The “Exit Readiness” Quiz: Is Your Business Sellable Right Now?

Most business owners believe their company is worth more than it is. Not because they’re irrational — but because they’re measuring the wrong things. They’re counting the years they’ve put in, the customers they’ve served, the problems they’ve solved. Buyers are counting something else entirely.

Buyers are counting risk. And every “No” answer on the checklist below is a risk they will price into their offer — or use as a reason to walk away.

This quiz isn’t designed to make you feel good about your business. It’s designed to show you exactly where you stand before a buyer’s due diligence team does. Answer honestly. Every uncomfortable “No” today is a problem you still have time to fix.

The goal isn’t a perfect score. The goal is to know your score — and start closing the gaps before they close your deal.

How to Use This Quiz

Go through each question and check YES or NO based on where your business actually stands today — not where you hope it will be, not where it was two years ago. At the end, tally your results using the scoring guide. Be ruthless. A buyer’s accountant will be.

 

THE EXIT READINESS QUIZ

SECTION 1: Financial Clarity
1.  Are your last three years of financials prepared by a CPA or accounting firm? Buyers trust third-party-prepared statements far more than owner-assembled spreadsheets.	YES	NO
2.  Can you clearly explain every significant add-back on your P&L? Unexplained add-backs are one of the top due diligence red flags.	YES	NO
3.  Is your EBITDA trending upward — or at minimum stable — over the past 24 months? A single great year preceded by decline raises serious buyer skepticism.	YES	NO
4.  Are your personal and business finances cleanly separated? Commingling is a dealbreaker for institutional and PE buyers.	YES	NO
SECTION 2: Revenue Quality & Customer Health
5.  Does no single customer represent more than 20% of your total revenue? High concentration = high risk in a buyer’s model. It reduces your multiple.	YES	NO
6.  Is a meaningful portion of your revenue recurring or under contract? Recurring revenue commands a premium. One-time project revenue creates uncertainty.	YES	NO
7.  Would your top 10 customers continue with a new owner? Relationship-dependent revenue that walks out with you is not sellable at full value.	YES	NO
8.  Do you have a documented customer acquisition process that doesn’t rely solely on you? If your sales pipeline lives in your head, it dies at close.	YES	NO
SECTION 3: Operations & Team
9.  Could your business operate for 30 days without you making a single decision? This is the single most important test of buyer confidence.	YES	NO
10.  Do you have a management team with defined roles and documented responsibilities? An owner-dependent business is a high-risk acquisition.	YES	NO
11.  Are your core processes documented and trainable? If it’s only in your head, it’s a liability, not an asset.	YES	NO
12.  Are your key employees likely to stay post-sale? Buyers pay for teams. Retention risk gets priced into the deal.	YES	NO
SECTION 4: Legal & Structural Readiness
13.  Are all material contracts (vendor, customer, lease) in writing and transferable? Verbal agreements dissolve at close. Non-transferable contracts kill deals.	YES	NO
14.  Is your intellectual property (trademarks, trade secrets, software) formally owned by the business entity? IP in the owner’s personal name creates costly legal restructuring.	YES	NO
15.  Are there no active or pending lawsuits, liens, or regulatory issues? Disclosed or discovered, these become price chips for buyers.	YES	NO
16.  Is your business structure (LLC, S-Corp, etc.) optimized for a tax-efficient sale? The wrong structure can cost you six figures in avoidable taxes at closing.	YES	NO
SECTION 5: Exit Strategy & Timing
17.  Do you know what your business is worth within a reasonable range today? Most owners are wrong by 30–50%. You can’t negotiate what you don’t understand.	YES	NO
18.  Have you identified what you want your life to look like after the sale? Sellers who haven’t answered this often stall or derail their own deals.	YES	NO
19.  Do you have a personal financial plan that accounts for taxes, reinvestment, and income after the sale? The number on the LOI is not your take-home. Plan accordingly.	YES	NO
20.  Have you spoken with an exit advisor or M&A attorney in the last 12 months? Flying blind into a transaction is the most expensive mistake in business.	YES	NO

How to Score Your Results

Give yourself 1 point for every YES. Then read your result:

18–20 YES: Exit-Ready. Your business is positioned to command top-of-market multiples. The work now is maintaining this performance for 12–24 more months, choosing the right advisory team, and timing the market. Don’t get complacent — a deal can still fall apart in due diligence.

13–17 YES: Almost There. You have real value built — but specific gaps will cost you at the negotiating table. A buyer will find these weaknesses in due diligence and use them to lower their offer or add contingencies. Start addressing your “No” answers now. With 12–18 months of focused effort, you can move into Exit-Ready territory.

8–12 YES: Significant Work Ahead. Your business is likely sellable — but not at the price you’re imagining. Buyers who see this many gaps will either significantly reduce their offer, structure in earn-outs and holdbacks, or pass entirely. The good news: most of these gaps are fixable. You need a structured 24-month exit preparation plan and an advisor who will tell you the truth.

7 or fewer YES: Not Sellable Yet — But That Can Change. Don’t be discouraged. This score doesn’t mean your business isn’t valuable. It means you have a significant opportunity to build that value intentionally before going to market. Owners who score here and do the work often achieve dramatically better outcomes than those who limp to market unprepared.

 

What Your “No” Answers Really Mean

Every “No” on this list is a story a buyer will tell themselves — and it’s never a flattering one. Here’s the translation:

• A “No” on financials becomes: “We can’t trust what we’re seeing.” Lower offer. More contingencies.
• A “No” on customer concentration becomes: “One relationship loss kills our ROI.” Earn-out provisions. Reduced cash at close.
• A “No” on owner dependency becomes: “The business is the owner.” Most buyers walk.
• A “No” on legal readiness becomes: “How much is this going to cost us to fix post-close?” Price chip on the table.

Every one of these issues costs you money. The question is whether you fix them now — on your timeline, with your leverage — or later, under pressure, with a buyer’s attorney across the table.

 

Your Next Step: Turn Your “No” Answers Into a Plan

A quiz can tell you where you stand. An advisor can tell you what to do about it.

Whether you scored 18 or 5, there is a clear path from where you are to where you want to be at closing. The difference between the owners who get the deal they deserve and the ones who don’t usually comes down to one thing: how far in advance they started asking the right questions.

You’re asking them now. That’s already ahead of most.

Ready to address your “No” answers?

Schedule a free business valuation and exit readiness assessment. We’ll walk through your quiz results together, identify your highest-priority gaps, and build a quarterly action plan to close them — on your timeline, at your pace.

→  Schedule Your Free Business Valuation

→  Book a Quarterly Review to Work Through Your Gaps

No pressure. No obligation. Just clarity about where you stand and what it’s going to take.

 

Because the best time to find out your business isn’t sellable is before you try to sell it.

 

Michael Shea represents the Tampa Florida Transworld office. In business since 2005, he has established a reputation as a trusted business broker across Florida’s key markets- from Tampa to Orlando, Melbourne, and more. Over the past two decades, Michael and his team have closed over $1 Billion in sold business volume and presided over more than 450 transactions. His credentials include the IBBA Certified Business Intermediary®, and most recently, the prestigious Certified Exit Planning Advisor® (CEPA) credential.