by Scott Sylvan Bell | May 22, 2026 | Business exit strategies
The Direct Answer Owner dependency hurts your multiple upon your exit because buyers — private equity, strategic buyers, private buyers — see owner-dependent businesses as transition risks they have to price as discounts. If your business relies on you to make every...
by Scott Sylvan Bell | May 21, 2026 | Business exit strategies
Published: 2026-04-21 | Last Updated: 2026-04-21 | By: Scott Sylvan Bell | Location: Tahiti, French Polynesia Why Should Your Growth Strategy Include an Exit Plan From Day 1? Direct answer: Your growth strategy should include an exit plan from day 1 because...
by Scott Sylvan Bell | May 20, 2026 | Uncategorized
A CIM — confidential information memorandum — is the document buyers receive after signing an NDA. It breaks down your company, financials, headcount, and key features. Most owners never review theirs before it circulates, which costs them multiple at the table. What...
by Scott Sylvan Bell | May 19, 2026 | Uncategorized
The Direct Answer You build a KPI dashboard to be more profitable by tracking three essential categories every day — sales, marketing, and accounting. Sales tracks leads in, leads closed, revenue produced, and cancellations. Marketing tracks leads produced, ad spend,...
by Scott Sylvan Bell | May 18, 2026 | Uncategorized
The Direct Answer You use first-person video for better customer service by strapping a phone or GoPro to your chest and walking your business the way a client experiences it — through the front door, past every sign, through every station, every interaction. The...
by Scott Sylvan Bell | May 17, 2026 | Uncategorized
The Direct Answer To get the maximum multiple when you exit, you do four things in sequence. First, run the 5432 process — plan for a five-year exit window, prepare across years one and two, and decide the actual sale year between years three, four, or five based on...
by Scott Sylvan Bell | May 16, 2026 | Business Growth
The Direct Answer You must tour your business at the ground level — walking the floor, talking to employees, observing operations directly — because the version of your business you see from the executive office is not the version that actually operates day to day....
by Scott Sylvan Bell | May 15, 2026 | Uncategorized
The Direct Answer A management buyout, or MBO, is a sale path where you sell your business to your existing management team or your employees instead of selling to private equity, a synergistic buyer, or a private investor. The management team signs a non-disclosure...
by Scott Sylvan Bell | May 13, 2026 | Exit Strategy
The Direct Answer When you decide to sell your business internally, five things change immediately. First, how you hire management, consultants, and employees shifts toward best-of-the-best instead of warm bodies. Second, who you retain changes — the people holding...
by Scott Sylvan Bell | May 12, 2026 | Exit Ratio 360, Uncategorized
The Direct Answer I wrote Exit Ratio 360 because too many business owners leave massive amounts of money on the table at exit. The book gives mid-market owners a 9-framework system — READY, LAUNCH, SCORE, SELL, SCALE, DRIVER, EXIT, BENCH, LEAD, and THREATS — to score...
