Owner decision brief
Value, timing, liquidity, rollover, transition, employee, customer, and walk-away priorities agreed among the owners.
FOR LOWER-MIDDLE-MARKET BUSINESS OWNERS
Is your company ready to sell?
Buyer interest is not the same as transaction readiness. Test the six areas that most often determine whether an owner controls the process—or spends it reacting.
Assess your readiness18 statements · About 5 minutes
Being ready does not mean being committed to sell.
It means preserving options, protecting leverage, and eliminating avoidable surprises before the market sets the timetable.THE READINESS ASSESSMENT
Six tests. One owner-level view.
Answer based on what is documented and repeatable today—not what the team believes it could assemble after a buyer appears. Your responses stay in this browser unless you complete the assessment and explicitly choose to share them with Premia.
01
0/3 assessed
Owner alignment & objectives
Know what a good outcome means before a buyer defines it for you.
What ready looks like
The owners agree on value, timing, retained equity, transition expectations, employee priorities, and the conditions under which they would walk away.
The owners agree on value, timing, rollover equity, transition, and nonfinancial priorities.
Personal, estate, tax, and wealth-planning conversations have begun well before a potential transaction.
Each owner has a realistic view of their desired role—and their willingness to stay—after closing.
02
0/3 assessed
Financial quality & earnings
A buyer pays for earnings it can verify, understand, and believe will continue.
What ready looks like
Monthly financials reconcile, EBITDA adjustments are documented, working capital is understood, and the forecast is supported by operating evidence.
At least three years of monthly financial statements reconcile cleanly to tax returns and underlying records.
Every proposed owner adjustment or EBITDA add-back has clear support and is unlikely to surprise a quality-of-earnings reviewer.
Working capital, capital expenditures, debt-like items, and cash conversion are measured and explainable.
03
0/3 assessed
Revenue & customer durability
Revenue quality matters as much as revenue growth.
What ready looks like
Management can explain concentration, retention, pricing, backlog, pipeline, contract terms, and the durability of key customer relationships.
Revenue and gross profit can be analyzed by customer, product or service, geography, and month.
Customer concentration, retention, pricing, churn, and contract renewal risk are measured—not estimated from memory.
Backlog and pipeline are defined consistently and supported by contracts, purchase orders, or a disciplined CRM process.
04
0/3 assessed
Operations & management depth
The business must be able to perform without the owner carrying every critical relationship or decision.
What ready looks like
A credible management team, repeatable operating processes, measurable KPIs, and a retention plan support continuity through and after a transaction.
Customers, employees, and daily operating decisions do not depend disproportionately on one owner.
Key leaders are capable, properly incentivized, and likely to remain through a transaction and transition.
Core processes, KPIs, systems, cybersecurity practices, and continuity plans are documented and consistently used.
05
0/3 assessed
Legal, tax & documentation
Missing documents and unresolved liabilities become buyer leverage.
What ready looks like
The ownership record, material contracts, employment matters, licenses, permits, intellectual property, tax history, and litigation record are complete and organized.
The cap table, governance records, ownership history, liens, debt, and related-party arrangements are complete and consistent.
Material customer, supplier, lease, employment, license, and technology agreements are current and centrally organized.
Tax filings, licenses, permits, insurance, employment practices, litigation, and regulatory matters have been reviewed for open issues.
06
0/3 assessed
Market story & process readiness
A strong company can still underperform in a poorly prepared sale process.
What ready looks like
The value narrative is evidence-backed, likely buyer questions are anticipated, information can be released in stages, and the business can support diligence without losing operating momentum.
The company’s differentiation, growth runway, risks, and buyer-specific strategic value can be explained with evidence.
A secure, indexed data room can be assembled without a last-minute search for critical information.
The team has the capacity and governance to answer diligence requests while continuing to run the business.
THE READINESS FILE
What should exist before outreach begins.
Owners do not need a perfect company. They do need a business that can be understood, defended, and diligenced without losing control of the narrative.
Financial fact base
Three years of monthly financials, a credible normalized EBITDA bridge, working-capital analysis, capex history, and forecast support.
Commercial evidence
Customer- and offering-level revenue, concentration, retention, contracts, pricing, backlog, pipeline, and growth proof.
Operating evidence
Management responsibilities, organization design, KPI definitions, process documentation, systems, cyber controls, and continuity planning.
Corporate record
Ownership, governance, debt, liens, tax, legal, employment, licenses, permits, insurance, intellectual property, and material contracts.
Transaction architecture
Buyer universe, confidentiality plan, staged information release, data-room index, diligence governance, and negotiation priorities.
WHERE OWNERS LOSE LEVERAGE
The issues are rarely hidden. They are usually postponed.
The owner is still the operating system
Key customers, pricing decisions, employee trust, and institutional knowledge remain concentrated in one person.
The earnings story cannot survive diligence
Add-backs are aggressive, margins are unexplained, or monthly results do not reconcile to the narrative.
Customer quality is assumed, not measured
Concentration, churn, contract exposure, backlog quality, and pipeline conversion are discovered during buyer diligence.
Documents arrive after the question
Contracts, permits, tax records, employment matters, and ownership records are scattered or inconsistent.
The process outruns the business
Management is consumed by diligence, performance slips, and the buyer gains leverage from missed forecasts or delayed responses.
A PRACTICAL SEQUENCE
Prepare before you perform.
- 01DIAGNOSE
See the business through a buyer’s eyes.
Establish the owner objectives, value drivers, evidence gaps, likely diligence pressure points, and issues that could change price or certainty.
- 02STRENGTHEN
Fix what matters while time is still an ally.
Prioritize the changes that improve earnings credibility, customer durability, management depth, documentation, and the forward growth case.
- 03PREPARE
Build the story, evidence, and process architecture.
Develop buyer-facing materials, financial support, the data room, buyer universe, confidentiality plan, diligence governance, and negotiation priorities.
- 04DECIDE
Go to market only when the risk-adjusted outcome is attractive.
Choose whether to sell now, wait, recapitalize, pursue a strategic partnership, or keep building value with the option to transact later.
START BEFORE THE TIMETABLE STARTS
A confidential readiness review can begin long before a sale decision.
Premia helps owners identify what buyers will reward, what they will challenge, and what should be fixed before outreach begins.