How do I prepare my company for sale so it runs without me?

What a buyer checks

A buyer is paying for the company. Anything that sits only with you goes when you do. Expect four questions:

1. Key person: which decisions, clients and know-how sit only with you?
2. Process: could someone new run the top processes from what's written down?
3. Data: do the numbers agree, and can the team see them without you pulling them?
4. Customers: how much revenue sits with a few accounts, and who do those accounts call?

Every answer that ends in "you" is risk. That risk comes off the price.

The two-week test

Be gone for two weeks. Tell the team you won't pick up. Before you leave, write down what you expect to reach you.

When you're back, count three things: what waited for you, what got decided without you, and how the week's numbers moved. Every item that waited is the next decision to write down. Run it again a quarter later.

A buyer can't check a plan. They can check the weeks you were away and what happened to the numbers.

A 12-month preparation sequence

Each quarter builds on the one before it.

1. Months 1 to 3, write it down. Keep a 7-day decision log. Write your top five processes, with the judgment calls in them, along with the steps.
2. Months 4 to 6, hand it off. Give every recurring decision one owner and a limit. Put a name on every seat in the org chart.
3. Months 7 to 9, run the rhythm. The week's numbers on one page, a weekly operations meeting the team runs, exceptions reviewed once a week. Run the first two-week test.
4. Months 10 to 12, show the record. Run the test again. Collect the written SOPs, the matrix with names and limits, the weekly numbers, and the weeks you were away.

Decisions to hand off first

Start with decisions that repeat every week and touch money: refunds, discounts, overtime, payables. Each one looks too small to write down. Together, they fill your day.

Write each one into a decision authority matrix: one owner, one limit, and what brings it back to you. Put that owner's seat on the org chart. The full method is in How do I reduce owner dependency.

In one engagement, $1.2M of $1.4M in overdue receivables was collected in three months once one person owned receivables.

What not to do

1. Rush it. A plan written the month before a sale is a promise. Months of the team running from written decisions is a record.
2. Hide it. If you still close the big deals, say so. Show who is taking them over.
3. Over-polish it. A binder of SOPs nobody follows won't hold up when a buyer talks to your team. Write what the team actually does, then run it.

Where this sits in SCOPE™ by Efficiency Sprint

This is Codify and Ownership: make the recipe clear, then people run it reliably. It comes before AI. AI scales whatever's already there, so a company that runs without its owner is the one an agent can work in. AI starts helping at Pulse and acts on its own at Engine.

We install systems in companies that make them run without owners and ready for automation. If you're buying or holding companies, see Efficiency Sprint for private equity.

Efficiency Sprint makes companies operationally ready for AI. The operational AI readiness check takes about two minutes and shows where your company stands.